Mar 07, 2024 - Sale 2661

Sale 2661 - Lot 47

Unsold
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
INCLUDES LETTER BY NAPOLÉON WRITTEN AFTER BATTLE OF THE NILE (NAPOLÉON.) LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE. Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte. Extra illustrated with over 300 prints bound in, some folded to fit, including portraits, views and maps, some hand colored, and a Letter Signed, "Bonaparte," by Napoléon, one quarter of verso mounted to front blank and folded to fit. The letter, to General Honoré Vial, in French, instructing him to send hostages to Cairo, take control of Lake Manzala, and ambush the English frigate, and reporting that General Charles Dugua will be watching coastline. 1½ pages, 4to, "Armée" stationery; final lines of letter text inaccessible due to mounting, left and upper edges reinforced with paper or tissue, short closed separations at folds, faint bleedthrough from signature on verso, faint offsetting from letter text while folded, faint scattered soiling. The book, 4 volumes in 8. 8vo, 19th-century morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, spines in 6 compartments with 5 raised bands gilt-lettered in two and others with bee or Napoleonic initial, gilt ornamental covers, front or rear cover of 3 volumes starting or detached, few scattered abrasions with minor loss to gilt; all edges gilt, morocco doublures gilt tooled with bee and orb pattern, silk endpapers, front or rear endpaper in each volume discolored from remnants of bookplate mounting, most plates lacking tissue guards with moderate offsetting throughout; cloth box, moderately worn. London: Richard Bentley, 1836; letter: Cairo, 26 September 1798

Additional Details

First English edition, extra illustrated, printed with additional title-page in each volume stating that it has been "Extended to Eight Volumes by the Insertion of Three Hundred Extra Illustrations."
List of inserted illustrations available upon request.
Napoléon's letter: "Take advantage . . . of the days when . . . General Dugua can stay at Damietta to disarm the army there, arrest suspect men and send them to Cairo. Disarm the villages, take hostages and take complete control of Lake Manzala. As long as you are not master of this lake, you cannot be sure of controlling Damietta.
"I am writing to General Dugua that he is to reconnoiter the shores of the sea . . . .
"Try to learn the name of the English frigate and if you should learn that they are disembarking somewhere to get provisions, let them disembark for a few days in order to have the time to take them in an ambush. . . ."