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Rare book from Napoleon Bonaparte's personal library at Saint Helena: L'Art de Vérifier les Dates des Faits Historiques, des Chartes, des Chroniques, et Autres Anciens Monuments, Depuis La Naissance de Notre-Seigneur [The Art of Verifying the Dates of Historical Events, Charters, Chronicles, and Other Ancient Monuments, From the Birth of Our Lord]. Paris: Valade, Imprimeur du Roi, 1818. Hardcover bound in contemporary brown calf with marbled endpapers, 5.25 x 8.25, 523 pages. The volume boasts two presentation inscriptions, "Napoleon, from E. V. Holland," on a free end page and at the head of the first page. The title page also carries a brown handstamp indistinctly showing Napoleon's coat of arms—signaling that the book was held in Napoleon's library at Longwood House on St. Helena—and a second stamp from the library of the 'Couvent des Capuchins' in Le Mans, which apparently received this volume following Napoleon's demise. Book condition: G+/None, with heavy rubbing to boards, partial library label to front pastedown, and rubbing to gilt designs on the spine.
The donor of this volume was Lady Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Baroness Holland (1771–1845), a devoted admirer of the exiled Napoleon. Her husband, Whig politician Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland (1773–1840), made numerous—though ultimately unsuccessful—efforts to secure permission for Napoleon to travel to England during his confinement. Several books and other items presented to Napoleon by Lady Holland are known to have been sent with the permission of Lord Henry Bathurst, the British Secretary of State responsible for Napoleon’s detention and for regulating all materials allowed to reach him on Saint Helena.
