Are these the 5 most absurdly priced Napoleonic books?

It's a rainy bank holiday so I find myself tootling through amazon browsing for reading inspiration.  It turns out that these are five most expensive books you can buy on the subject of the Napoleonic wars - should they be?

Counting down they are....

5   Napoleon's Last Grande Armee: Portraits from the 1813 Campaign - leather bound and illustrated,  Alfred Umhey This one is new to me - but here is a copy  listed at £459.97.

4 L'armée de Napoléon : Uniformes du Ier Empire, 1792-1815 - by the same author as above....  Alfred Umhey and Jacques Domange, Another new one on me but looks fab and a snip at £686.93 !

 

 

3  Napoleonic Uniforms by Elting and Knotel  -  volumes 1 and 2.  Wonderful set of two volunes (you buy them together when new so all the same book) varied from an almost sensibleish £250 for used copies to £1758.64 for supposedly new copies.

2  Napoleon's Army - hardback by Lucien Rousselot  - priced somewhere between £160 and a truly gobsmacking £1065.8

 I adore his plates - maybe £160 is not insane - but the rest!

1  Napoleonic Uniforms: Volumes 3 and 4 Vassals and Enemies by Elting and Knotel. 

Love these books and lucky enough to have bought them when first published - Thinner volumes than the first two but browsing through them is inspirational.  However certainly wouldn't want to shell out up to £1,898.34  for this pair! The lowest price is around £1200.00!

So what do they have in common?

1. Pictures - lots of lovely pictures and who doesn;t love lots of uniform pics
2. The subject is mainly the French army
3. Mad bookshops with unrealistic expectations

Would I sell the ones of these I own at these prices - hell yes!   Then spend the money on traveling round 2nd handbook shops to buy them back at a lower price. It would be a joy!

A new two volume history by John Hussey of the Waterloo Campaign and a PHD thesis on Hougomont

John Hussey has been working across four languages to pull together this two volume history of the 100 days and it's aftermath.  The first will be out in April.


Whilst something  you can read now is an intriguing PHD on Hougoumont - what it was like in June 1815.  It has also been informed by the fascinating work of the archaeology charity Waterloo Uncovered (they combine archaeology with current veterans to explore the battlefield).  A taste of their work

"Tony is confident that the lead musket shot found along that southern perimeter signaled the opening of this brutal and titanic confrontation.  

Metal detecting needn’t be limited to the ground.   Three ancient chestnut trees, standing just south of the main gatehouse of the farm, appear to be “riddled with lead shot”, if the detectors are to be believed.  Unsurprising, since the trees stand in the line of fire of the British guardsmen defending the south side of the gatehouse, who would have been pouring fire onto the attacking Frenchman."