By Alex, founder of Highstreett
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Best books about Napoleon: six books on the man, his wars and his legend
Start with Andrew Roberts's Napoleon the Great for the whole life in one volume, Jakob Walter's diary for the war as an ordinary soldier saw it, or Patrick Rambaud's The Exile if you would rather read a novel. Six books follow, grouped by what you want to know rather than ranked, and every one of them came back from a Highstreett book search run for this page. Last verified 16 October 2026.
Edition and source checks: 16 October 2026.
What Highstreett returned for “best books about Napoleon: the major biographies, his campaigns and battles, how he ruled France, the people around him, and novels set in the Napoleonic era”
- Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts (2014)
- The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier, Jakob Walter (1997)
- The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle Between Britain and France, 1789-1815, Robert Harvey (2006)
- Napoleon: A Biography, Frank McLynn (1997)
- Napoleon's France, Jean Tulard (1977)
- The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History's Greatest Soldier, David G. Chandler (1966)
See this result · Run 16 October 2026. One request, without re-prompting.
Editor’s verdict: A strong first search on the biographies and the wars, with one invented title. Andrew Roberts, Frank McLynn and David Chandler are the books a historian would name, Robert Harvey covers the long war between Britain and France, and Jakob Walter's diary gives the view from the ranks. But Jean Tulard's "Napoleon's France" does not exist in English: the nearest real book is his Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour (1977, translated 1984), long out of print. It also dated Walter's diary 1997, the year of one reprint; it was first published in English in 1938. It returned no novels, although the query asked for them, and set aside War and Peace as a book about the wars rather than the man. Four of its six are on this page. The run started at 19:22 UK time and is shown unedited.
How this list was made: it starts from the Highstreett book search results above, run 16 October 2026 and shown as they came back. Alex, founder of Highstreett, chose the final list.
Napoleon Bonaparte rose from a Corsican artillery officer to Emperor of the French in less than a decade, fought a war across Europe from Spain to Moscow, and ended his life a prisoner on St Helena. Historians still argue about whether he was the heir of the French Revolution or its gravedigger, and about what his wars cost the people who fought them. The six books below take the man, the wars and the legend in turn.
This page was built from two searches on 16 October 2026: one asking for the best books about Napoleon, from the biographies to his campaigns and his rule, and a second asking for novels, his family and his legend. Between them they returned eleven different books, one of which does not exist. We checked each pick against a UK edition.
If you want the whole life in one book
Both searches put this first. It is the obvious place to start, and long.
1. Napoleon the Great, Andrew Roberts (2014)
Biography · 1769-1821 · Readability: popular, very long
Roberts's one-volume life runs from Napoleon's youth to St Helena, and he draws on the complete edition of Napoleon's letters published in France, and on visits to 53 of his 60 battlefields. He admires his subject, and says so; he also takes apart some of the legends, including the great romance with Josephine. The searches named it by its American title, Napoleon: A Life; in Britain it is Napoleon the Great. Differs: nearly a thousand pages, and an admirer's case rather than a neutral survey.
Edition source: Penguin paperback, 2015, 976 pages; £20.00 and in stock at Blackwell's when we checked on 16 October 2026. ISBN 9780141032016.
If you want his wars
One book on how Napoleon fought, campaign by campaign, and one on the whole war between Britain and France he inherited and lost.
2. The Campaigns of Napoleon, David G. Chandler (1966)
Military history · campaign by campaign · Readability: demanding, reference
Chandler goes through Napoleon's campaigns one by one and draws out the principles of manoeuvre and battle planning behind what looked like improvisation. Sixty years on it is still the study most often recommended for his generalship. Differs: a reference book for readers who want maps and orders of battle, not a story; at well over a thousand pages and only in hardback, it is the most expensive book here.
Edition source: Scribner hardback, 1216 pages; £59.99 and in stock at Blackwell's on 16 October 2026; we found no UK paperback in print. ISBN 9780025236608.
3. The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle Between Britain and France, 1789-1815, Robert Harvey (2006)
Narrative history · land and sea · Readability: popular, very long
Harvey tells the whole war between Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Britain, from 1789 to Waterloo, on land and at sea, from Moscow and the Caribbean to Trafalgar and Flanders. Napoleon is at its centre without being its only subject. Differs: a history of the war, not of the man, told from the British side as much as the French.
Edition source: Constable paperback, 2007, 962 pages; £20.00 and in stock at Blackwell's on 16 October 2026. ISBN 9781845296353.
If you want the war from the ranks
The first search's most surprising pick, and the shortest book here.
4. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier, Jakob Walter (1938)
First-hand account · 1806-1813 · Readability: easy, short
Walter was a German stonemason conscripted into Napoleon's army, and he marched with it from 1806 to 1813, through Prussia and Poland and into Russia and back. His account of the retreat from Moscow in 1812, written down years later, is one of very few by an ordinary soldier, and the edition includes letters he sent home. The search dated it 1997, the year of one reprint; it first appeared in English in 1938. Differs: one man's memory, with none of the strategy, and in the UK it is now easiest to find as an ebook.
Edition source: Doubleday ebook, 2012, edited by Marc Raeff; the Penguin paperback was not available to buy new at Blackwell's or Waterstones on 16 October 2026. ISBN 9780307817563.
If you want the private man
The second search was asked for his family; this is the book it found that we can recommend.
5. Napoleon: His Wives and Women, Christopher Hibbert (2002)
Popular history · family and private life · Readability: accessible
Hibbert follows Napoleon through the women in his life: his mother and sisters, Josephine, his second wife Marie-Louise and his mistress Marie Walewska, through to exile and the arguments over his death. Publishers Weekly called it studiously nonjudgmental. The search named it by its American paperback title, Napoleon's Women, and dated it 2004. Differs: the battles happen offstage; read it after a full biography, not instead of one.
Edition source: HarperCollins paperback, 2010; £14.99 at Blackwell's on 16 October 2026. ISBN 9780006531463.
If you want a novel
The first search found no fiction; the second found this.
6. The Exile, Patrick Rambaud (2003)
Novel · 1814-1815, Elba · Readability: literary, light
In 1814 the allies close on Paris, Napoleon abdicates and is sent to Elba, and most of Rambaud's novel follows him on the island, restless and scheming, until he plans his return. It is the last of Rambaud's three Napoleonic novels, after The Battle and The Retreat, and reads well on its own. It was translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside. The search called it Napoleon's Exile, its American title, and placed it on St Helena; it is set on Elba. Differs: fiction, and a portrait of Napoleon diminished rather than at his height.
Edition source: Picador paperback, 352 pages; £14.99 at Blackwell's on 16 October 2026, dispatched in two to three weeks. ISBN 9781447259817.
The editions behind these choices
The ISBN beside each book is a current UK edition, and the source link is the page we read on 16 October 2026: Blackwell's, which we could read when Foyles's pages would not load for us, or the publisher. Prices and stock are what those pages showed that day. Three of the books are published under different titles in the United States, which is how the searches named them.
The honest bit
Every book here came from one of the two searches shown at the foot of the page. We did not add any of our own, so there are gaps: nothing here is by a French historian in print in English, nothing tells his story from Corsica, Spain, Russia or the Caribbean, and the book on how he governed France that the first search reached for does not exist.
Five of the eleven books the searches returned are not on the page. Frank McLynn's Napoleon is a fine biography, but we could not find it new in the UK. Jean Tulard's "Napoleon's France" does not exist in English. Alistair Horne's The Age of Napoleon and David A. Bell's The First Total War are both good and both out of stock in the UK. Sandra Gulland's novel about Josephine ends where Napoleon enters her life, and is out of print here.
Questions
What is the best biography of Napoleon?
For one volume, Andrew Roberts's Napoleon the Great (2014), published in the United States as Napoleon: A Life. It is long and admiring. Frank McLynn's Napoleon (1997), which our first search also found, is harder to buy new in the UK.
Is there a good novel about Napoleon?
Patrick Rambaud's The Exile, the last of his three Napoleonic novels, follows Napoleon's abdication and his months on Elba. The first two, The Battle and The Retreat, cover the battle of Aspern-Essling and the retreat from Moscow.
What should I read about Napoleon's battles?
David G. Chandler's The Campaigns of Napoleon is the standard study of how he fought, campaign by campaign, but it is a large and expensive hardback. Robert Harvey's The War of Wars tells the whole war with Britain as a narrative.
Highstreett's book search knows the standard Napoleon shelf, but this page shows its limits too: it invented one title and misdated three. Describe what you want next, such as a book on one battle or a novel of the retreat from Moscow, and it will look for you.
Describe the book you want next
Best books about the Russian Revolution: for another revolution that ended in one man's rule.
Best books about the First World War: for the next war to remake Europe, a century after Waterloo.
How this list was made: the searches
Every Highstreett book search this page was built from, with every book each one returned, exactly as it came back.
Search 1: “best books about Napoleon: the major biographies, his campaigns and battles, how he ruled France, the people around him, and novels set in the Napoleonic era”
Run 16 October 2026 at 19:22 BST · See this result
- Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts (2014)
- The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier, Jakob Walter (1997)
- The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle Between Britain and France, 1789-1815, Robert Harvey (2006)
- Napoleon: A Biography, Frank McLynn (1997)
- Napoleon's France, Jean Tulard (1977)
- The Campaigns of Napoleon: The Mind and Method of History's Greatest Soldier, David G. Chandler (1966)
Editor’s verdict: Four of these six are on the page; the verdict on this search is in the first search block above.
Search 2: “more books about Napoleon: novels set in the Napoleonic era, the Napoleon legend and his exile on St Helena, Josephine and his family, and histories of the Napoleonic Wars across Europe”
Run 16 October 2026 at 19:22 BST · See this result
- Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts (2014)
- Napoleon's Exile, Patrick Rambaud (2006)
- The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Sandra Gulland (1657)
- Napoleon's Women, Christopher Hibbert (2004)
- The Age of Napoleon, Alistair Horne (2004)
- The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It, David A. Bell (2007)
Editor’s verdict: The second search was asked for novels, the family and the legend, and found two of the three: Rambaud's novel of Napoleon's exile and Hibbert's book on the women in his life. Its dates need correcting: it gives Gulland's novel as 1657, when it was first published in 1995, and Hibbert's book first appeared in 2002. It placed Rambaud's novel on St Helena; it is set on Elba. It found nothing on the legend after his death, and set aside Mikaberidze and Chandler because it had decided the query wanted novels. It also returned Roberts again. Two of its six are on this page. The run started at 19:22 UK time and is shown unedited.
How the comparison was bounded
We did not compare this list with other published lists of books about Napoleon. The six come only from the two Highstreett searches shown below; the page makes no claim about how often these books appear elsewhere.