THE PINNACLE OF GLORY

This is being presented as fiction, but belongs in that in-between class of fictionized biographical material. The market is the Napoleon fans, for the ""story"" tells of the years on St. Helena, of the setting star. The prerogative of the novelist has been brought to bear on the conversation, although one feels a note of authenticity even here, a sense of fitting much quoted phrases into a legitimate setting. It is a tragic period in Napoleon's life, not only because he was treated as a prisoner, and deprived of the panoply that was food and drink to him, but because one sees him slipping, physically, mentally, emotionally. Not an inspired book, nor one to stir fresh interest in the man or the period, but adequate from the scholarly point of view, and a definite contribution to literature of the scene.