Download or read book Betsy and the Emperor written by Anne Whitehead and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he was sent into exile on Saint Helena. He became an 'eagle in a cage', reduced from the most powerful figure in Europe to a prisoner on a rock in the South Atlantic. But the fallen emperor was charmed by the pretty teenage daughter of a local merchant, Betsy Balcombe. Anne Whitehead brings to life Napoleon's last years on Saint Helena, revealing the central role of the Balcombe family. She also lays to rest two centuries of speculation about Betsy's relationship with Napoleon. After Napoleon's death, Betsy travelled to Australia in 1823 with her father, who was appointed the first Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales. When the family lost their fortune, she returned to London and published a memoir that made her a celebrity. With her extraordinary connections to royalty and high society, Betsy Balcombe led a life worthy of a Regency romance, but she was always fighting for her independence. This new account reveals Napoleon at his most vulnerable, human and reflective, and a woman caught in some of the most dramatic events of her time. 'Anne Whitehead deftly weaves a lively, poignant tale of Napoleon's last years on St Helena and the precocious teenager whose impudent charm briefly enlivened his exile. Her indefatigable pursuit of a tantalising archival trail takes her readers from St Helena to England, Scotland, France and New South Wales, uncovering a life curiously shadowed by its early brush with fame.' - Professor Penny Russell, University of Sydney
Download or read book Napoleon Betsy written by Lucia Elizabeth Abell and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Napoleon and Betsy Balcombe is an unusual and fascinating tale. A fallen Emperor who once controlled most of Europe makes friends with an impudent, pretty and spirited young English girl, just about the celebrate her thirteenth birthday. Betsy produced a book full of interest, but notwithstanding that the book wanders backwards and forward chronologically, the general tenor of the relationship between this young girl and Napoleon is beyond question, and it was of an unusual and extremely friendly nature. Napoleon's fall from an unprecedented position of power to humiliating confinement must have been an impossible burden to have lived with, and yet, despite this - or possibly because of it - Napoleon befriended this child and held genuine affection for her. Despite the naivety, the warmth of the friendship between the ex-emperor and little 'Mees' Balcombe shines through, and her text is well-worth providing in this new edition. Napoleon was at the Briars for eight weeks, but the family were very close to the community at Longwood, some two miles further up hill and inland, and visited weekly, sometimes more often. It was here, as Betsy matured and grew more responsible, that the friendship developed, to the extent that she assisted Napoleon with his attempts at English. She was daring as well as impudent and with an irrepressible sense of humour she unlocked the inner child in Napoleon that led to the famous friendship. He found her boldness amusing and occasionally alarming. It must have been a welcome diversion from his darker thoughts.
Download or read book To Befriend an Emperor written by Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe Abell and published by Ravenhall Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young Elizabeth Balcombe, or Betsy to friends and family, found life on the remote island of St Helena intolerably dull. Most fourteen-year-olds would. Her father had been posted to that unforgiving station in the Atlantic and, being a family man, he took his family with him. Life was bleak in Balcombe's bungalow on the fringe of James Town. But then, in October 1815, the situation was transformed by the arrival of an unusual visitor. Napoleon Bonaparte, one-time master of Europe, now prisoner and exile, stepped ashore. The Balcombes, like all the islanders, were amazed. And even more so when Napoleon, taking a fancy to their bungalow (the Briars) moved in with them. Betsy, overcoming her surprise at sharing her home with an emperor, delighted in his company and the two became firm friends. Miss Betsy Balcombe made the most of her time with the world's most famous prisoner, keenly observing all around her, noting down conversations, recording moods. The result is a unique set of memoirs which records in astonishing detail an almost unbelievable story. That of how a precocious teenager and an emperor talked, argued, played, confided and teased their way through grim years of exile on the barren rock of St Helena. This attractive, illustrated edition brings this remarkable story back to life.
Download or read book The Emperor s Shadow written by Anne Whitehead and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, he was sent into exile on St Helena, arriving in October 1815. For the six years until his death, he was an 'eagle in a cage', reduced from the most powerful figure in Europe to a prisoner on a rock in the South Atlantic. But the fallen emperor was charmed and entertained by Betsy Balcombe, the pretty teenage daughter of a local merchant. Anne Whitehead brings to life Napoleon's time on St Helena and the web of connections around the globe which framed his last years. Betsy's father, William Balcombe, was well-connected in London, and he smuggled letters and undertook a clandestine mission to Paris for Napoleon. Betsy's friendship with Napoleon cast a shadow over the rest of her colourful life. She married a Regency cad, who soon left her and their daughter, and she travelled to Australia in 1823 with her father, who was appointed the first Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales. After her father was exposed for fraud and the family lost their fortune, she returned to London and published a memoir which turned her into a celebrity. With her extraordinary connections to royalty in London and to the Bonaparte family and their courtiers, Betsy Balcombe led a life worthy of a Regency romance. This new account reveals Napoleon at his most vulnerable, human and reflective, and a woman caught in some of the most dramatic events of her time.
Download or read book Wondrous Beauty written by Carol Berkin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning historian and author of Revolutionary Mothers (“Incisive, thoughtful, spiced with vivid anecdotes. Don’t miss it.”—Thomas Fleming) and Civil War Wives (“Utterly fresh . . . Sensitive, poignant, thoroughly fascinating.”—Jay Winik), here is the remarkable life of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, renowned as the most beautiful woman of nineteenth-century Baltimore, whose marriage in 1803 to Jérôme Bonaparte, the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, became inextricably bound to the diplomatic and political histories of the United States, France, and England. In Wondrous Beauty, Carol Berkin tells the story of this audacious, outsized life. We see how the news of the union infuriated Napoleon and resulted in his banning the then pregnant Betsy Bonaparte from disembarking in any European port, offering his brother the threat of remaining married to that “American girl” and forfeiting all wealth and power—or renouncing her, marrying a woman of Napoleon’s choice, and reaping the benefits. Jérôme ended the marriage posthaste and was made king of Westphalia; Betsy fled to England, gave birth to her son and only child, Jérôme’s namesake, and was embraced by the English press, who boasted that their nation had opened its arms to the cruelly abandoned young wife. Berkin writes that this naïve, headstrong American girl returned to Baltimore a wiser, independent woman, refusing to seek social redemption or a return to obscurity through a quiet marriage to a member of Baltimore’s merchant class. Instead she was courted by many, indifferent to all, and initiated a dangerous game of politics—a battle for a pension from Napoleon—which she won: her pension from the French government arrived each month until Napoleon’s exile. Using Betsy Bonaparte’s extensive letters, the author makes clear that the “belle of Baltimore” disdained America’s obsession with moneymaking, its growing ethos of democracy, and its rigid gender roles that confined women to the parlor and the nursery; that she sought instead a European society where women created salons devoted to intellectual life—where she was embraced by many who took into their confidence, such as Madame de Staël, Madame Récamier, the aging Marquise de Villette (goddaughter of Voltaire), among others—and where aristocracy, based on birth and breeding rather than commerce, dominated society. Wondrous Beauty is a riveting portrait of a woman torn between two worlds, unable to find peace in either—one a provincial, convention-bound new America; the other a sophisticated, extravagant Old World Europe that embraced freedoms, a Europe ultimately swallowed up by decadence and idleness. A stunning revelation of an extraordinary age.
Download or read book Betsy and the Emperor written by Staton Rabin and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2006-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1815 on the remote island of Saint Helena, fourteen-year-old Betsy Balcombe develops a friendship with Napoleon Bonaparte who, after his defeat at Waterloo, is brought there as an exile and is housed with her family.
Download or read book Betsy and the Emperor written by Staton Rabin and published by Margaret K. McElderry Books. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Think, my dear -- just think what it will be like, to be known as the girl who freed the great Napoleon Bonaparte!" Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have an unusual houseguest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now, in 1815, Napoleon is a captive of the British people. Stripped of his empire and robbed of his young family and freedom, he is confined to the forbidding, rat-infested island of St. Helena. The one bright star in Napoleon's black sky is Betsy, a blazingly rebellious teenager whose family is reluctantly housing the notorious prisoner. Betsy is the only foreigner Napoleon's ever met who is not impressed by him -- and Napoleon is more than intrigued. An unexpected alliance is formed. And a remarkable friendship between emperor and girl spawns gossip, and inspires Betsy to hatch a daring and dangerous scheme that could threaten both their lives and shake entire empires to their foundations.
Download or read book Betsy Bonaparte written by Helen J. Burn and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 130 years, Elizabeth "Betsy" Patterson Bonaparte has inspired countless books, movies, articles, and fictionalized accounts. None captures the full measure of her fascinating life. The product of thirty years of study, Helen Jean Burn's life of Betsy Bonaparte surpasses its predecessors in scope, depth, and soul. Born in Baltimore to a wealthy family in 1785, Elizabeth Patterson shook local and Parisian society when she wed Jerome Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor Napoleon. Insisting on a better future for his brother, the emperor annulled the marriage, but not before it produced a son, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Betsy's failed quest to win royal status for her son and grandsons consumed the remainder of her seventy-four years, decades that transformed her from the glamorous "belle of Baltimore" into a shrewd and successful businesswoman determined to protect her family.
Download or read book Napoleon s Last Island written by Thomas Keneally and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the island of St Helena in the south Atlantic ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip and secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials and slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious and petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family and becomes his unlikely friend. Based on fact, Napoleon's Last Island is the surprising story of one of history's most enigmatic figures and a British family who dared to associate with him. It is a tale of vengeance, duplicity and loyalty, and of a man whose charisma made him dangerous to the end.
Download or read book Finding Napoleon written by Margaret Rodenberg and published by She Writes Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Rodenberg inventively uses Bonaparte’s own unfinished novel to tell the story of the despot’s rise to power, which she juxtaposes against the story of his last love affair. Told creatively and with excellent research!” —Stephanie Dray, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of America's First Daughter and The Women of Chateau Lafayette “Beautiful and poignant.” —Allison Pataki, New York Times best-selling author of The Queen’s Fortune With its delightful adaptation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s real attempt to write romantic fiction, Finding Napoleon: A Novel offers a fresh take on Europe’s most powerful man after he’s lost everything—except his last love. A forgotten woman of history—the audacious Countess Albine—helps narrate their tale of intrigue, desire, and betrayal. After the defeated Emperor Napoleon goes into exile on tiny St. Helena Island in the remote South Atlantic, he and his lover, Albine de Montholon, plot to escape and rescue his young son. Banding together enslaved Africans, British sympathizers, a Jewish merchant, a Corsican rogue, and French followers, they confront British opposition—as well as treachery within their own ranks—with sometimes subtle, sometimes bold, but always desperate action. Amid his passions and intrigues, Napoleon finishes his real novel Clisson that he started writing as a young man. Now it's a father's message to the young son whom his enemies took from him, but how can they get it to the boy? When Napoleon and Albine break faith with one another, ambition and Albine’s husband threaten their reconciliation. To succeed, Napoleon must learn whom to trust. To survive, Albine must decide whom to betray. This elegant, richly researched novel reveals the Napoleon history conceals and the Countess Albine history has forgotten.
Download or read book Mr Tiger Betsy and the Blue Moon written by Sally Gardner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning author Sally Gardner delivers a whimsical tale about the daughter of a mermaid and an ice cream maker, a mysterious talking tiger, and a challenge as big as the moon. From a magical world of well-dressed animals, talking toads, and bossy princesses comes a timeless story about Mr. Tiger and his troupe of acrobats, and Betsy K. Glory, the daughter of a mermaid and an ice cream maker. Together they must figure out how to turn the moon blue, appease a grumpy giant, and make the best-tasting and rarest ice cream in the world--Gongalong Berry Ice Cream. Told with beautiful one-color illustrations throughout, this modern fairy tale teaches us that happiness is sometimes big enough to solve even the toughest problems.
Download or read book Cat Diaries written by Betsy Byars and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On one night every year, cats in the MEOW Society, which stands for "Memories Expressed In Our Writing," gather to read from their diaries, hearing stories of a gypsy cat, a Caribbean pirate cat, a library cat, and many others.
Download or read book Betsy Bonaparte written by Claude Bourguignon-Frassetto and published by Maryland Historical Society. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baltimore’s high-spirited, independent and controversial Betsy Patterson married Napoleon’s brother Jerome in 1803, bore a son, and defied the angry Emperor. Originally published in France in 1988, this lively biography takes the reader into the intrigues in France and early 19th-century Baltimore.
Download or read book Maximinus Thrax written by Paul N. Pearson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length biography of the half-barbarian emperor. Maximinus was a Thracian tribesman “of frightening appearance and colossal size” who could smash stones with his bare hands and pull fully laden wagons unaided. Such feats impressed the emperor Severus who enlisted Maximinus into the imperial bodyguard whereupon he embarked on a distinguished military career. Eventually he achieved senior command in the massive Roman invasion of Persia in 232 AD, and three years later he became emperor himself in a military coup—the first common soldier ever to assume the imperial throne. Supposedly more than seven feet tall (it is likely he had a pituitary disorder), Maximinus was surely one of Rome’s most extraordinary emperors. He campaigned across the Rhine and Danube for three years until a rebellion erupted in Africa and the snobbish senate engaged in civil war against him. This is a narrative account of the life and times of the Thracian giant, from his humble origins up to and beyond the civil war of 238 AD. Replete with accounts of treachery, assassination, and civil war, Maximinus Thrax is written for enthusiasts of Roman history and warfare. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book Between Us and Abuela written by Mitali Perkins and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning author Mitali Perkins and illustrator Sara Palacios comes Between Us and Abuela, a timely debut picture book about love overcoming the border fences between Mexico and the United States. It's almost time for Christmas, and Maria is traveling with her mother and younger brother, Juan, to visit their grandmother on the border of California and Mexico. For the few minutes they can share together along the fence, Maria and her brother plan to exchange stories and Christmas gifts with the grandmother they haven't seen in years. But when Juan's gift is too big to fit through the slats in the fence, Maria has a brilliant idea. She makes it into a kite that soars over the top of the iron bars. Here is a heartwarming tale of multi-cultural families, and the miracle of love.
Download or read book The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte written by and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Betsy and the Emperor written by Staton Rabin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-04-02 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Think, my dear -- just think what it will be like, to be known as the girl who freed the great Napoleon Bonaparte!" Fourteen-year-old English girl Betsy Balcombe and her family have a most unusual house guest: Napoleon Bonaparte, former emperor of France and the most feared man on earth. Once lord and master to eighty-two million souls, now in 1815, Napoleon is a captive of the British people. Stripped of his empire and robbed of his young family and freedom, he is confined to the forbidding, rat-infested island of St. Helena, where a cruel jailer and more than two thousand British troops guard his every move. The one bright star in Napoleon's black sky is Betsy, a blazingly rebellious teenager whose family is reluctantly housing the notorious prisoner. Betsy is the only foreigner Napoleon's ever met who is not impressed by him and doesn't tremble at the sight of him -- and Napoleon is more than intrigued. After fits and starts, a most remarkable friendship develops between Betsy and the emperor -- a friendship that transcends age and politics. As Betsy develops from a gangly, tomboyish girl to a blossoming young woman, this unexpected and wonderful alliance survives inevitable gossip and growing pains, giving Betsy the courage to pursue her dreams -- and Napoleon the courage to face his dark future. It also inspires Betsy to hatch a daring and dangerous plan on Napoleon's behalf, a scheme that could threaten both of their lives and shake entire empires to their foundations. Based on true events, Staton Rabin's story blends humor, adventure, and poignant drama, vividly revealing new insights into the heart and mind of one of the most towering, fascinating historical figures of our time -- and tells a tale of hope and bravery that will inspire readers to their own heights of courage.
