With Napoleon In Russia - Hardcover

Faber Du Faur, Christian Wilhelm Von

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1853674540 ISBN 13: 9781853674549

Publisher: Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal, 2001

Synopsis

This handsome book is a unique record of Napoleon's invasion of Russia by Faber du Faur, a talented artist and front-line soldier. It combines his detailed, accurate and compelling illustrations of scenes recorded as they actually happened with his vivid and gripping memoirs of the campaign. The result is a superb and remarkably detailed evocation of 1812, from the sweeping battle scenes which capture the ordeal of Smolensk and Borodino, to the day-to-day struggle to keep campfires burning and famished men fed. Faber du Faur's plates - admired and highly-regarded primary source material - are here presented, for the first time, complete and in full color. His moving and frank memoirs, edited and translated by Jonathan North, are accompanied by a detailed campaign history and biography of the artist. Napoleon's invasion of Russia is a legendary campaign and a captivating story of endurance, survival and the rigors of total war. Few of the 500,000 men to cross the Niemen in July 1812 were to survive - the French army was decimated by the advance into the heart of Russia, and almost completely destroyed in the epic retreat from Moscow. With Napoleon in Russia is a unique presentation of this epic and an unforgettable depiction of the horrors of war.

About this title

About the Author:

Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur (1780-1857) served as an artillery officer, in Ney's III Corps, throughout the 1812 campaign. He was later promoted and finished his career with the rank of general. Jonathan North translated Heinrich von Brandt's memoirs, published as In the Legions of Napoleon, and edited The Napoleon Options, an anthology of alternate history scenarios.

From Publishers Weekly:

The Stuttgart-born career soldier Christian Wilhelm von Faber du Faur (1780-1857) served for years in the Napoleonic army, like a vast number of able-bodied mercenaries of his day. Also an amateur artist, Faber du Faur drew sketches of what he saw on the campaigns, and these were reproduced in colored plates in varied editions through his lifetime, with various texts in German and French. Popular military historian North (In the Legions of Napoleon, etc.) has translated prose captions from one of Faber du Faur's editions. (Other editions included poetry, making this a debatable choice.) The 92 plates are very much by an amateur artist, someone dedicated to showing detail, but stiffly, without emotiveness. Yet any fan of "outsider" art will feel their strange immediacy, as if the artist were struggling toward an impossible objectivity. Like the images, the clinical tone of the captions seems at some distance from actuality; sometimes terse and clearly translated throughout, they lack personality, going instead for deadpan comments like: "The bodies had been exposed to the burning heat of the summer sun, and they were rotting." Caveats aside, the historical charge of these drawings is enough to justify this release, and their peculiar power more than makes up for any shortcomings in the glosses.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1853674540
• ISBN 13: 9781853674549
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: North Jonathan