Thursday 5 March 2015

Countdown to Waterloo - 105 days

Two hundred years ago today, one of the French king's bodyguards, Col Marie Antoine de Reiset, wrote in his journal:
An astounding piece of news arrived yesterday. We learnt, by Telegraph, that Bonaparte had landed at Cannes, near Frejus.
[The 'telegraph' referred to here was a system of semaphore. A reader has pointed out, entirely correctly, that the electric telegraph was not yet invented.]

By this time, Napoleon was already well on his way north, heading toward Paris, albeit by a circuitous route, designed to avoid areas that he believed were likely to be loyal to the king.

Two hundred years later, and my focus slips briefly away from Waterloo, as today marks the publication on Kindle of the new edition of Cawnpore. (The paperback will be out in a few days.)


Accent are now publishing four of my books, with Burke at Waterloo on the way. Check out the new page header, which celebrates with pictures of all five covers.

There's so much going on, I find it difficult to keep track. I hope you don't. All I'm asking you to do is click HERE and that should take you to Amazon, where you buy the Kindle version of Cawnpore. (Thanks to the magic of technology, this link should work whether you're in the US or UK or, indeed, anywhere else. Let me know if it doesn't.)

Please do give Cawnpore a try. It's not a particularly cheery read (it's almost certain to make you cry), but of all my books, it's the one I'm most proud of.

There'll be more about Napoleon's march on Paris in the next couple of days. Until then, get started on Cawnpore.

4 comments:

  1. Telegraph wasn't invented until 1837.

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    1. I'm quoting from a translation. It could have meant some form of semaphore. Thank you for pointing it out, though.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. I was interested enough in this to check the use of the word 'telegraph'. It was first used for a system of semaphore developed in France in the late 18th century. Mystery solved!

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