Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography

Blurb

Napoleon also published as Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography in 1972 is a biography of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte written by Vincent Cronin. The biographical style tends more towards a sympathetic overview of Napoleon's life and focuses more on the man's personality and relationships rather than his wars and battles, although these still play a significant part of the book.
Vincent Cronin states in the preface of the book his reasons for writing another biography over the many that had already been written. His first reason was that since 1951 new material had been discovered that was yet to be published that shed light on a new side of Napoleon, such as love letters to Désirée Clary and Napoleon's autobiography entitled Clisson et Eugénie.
Cronin states that:
"The second reason is more personal. There are in existence a large number of Lives of Napoleon and, though it will sound presumptuous, I was dissatisfied with their picture of Napoleon. I could not find a living, breathing man. Always to my mind there were glaring contradictions of character. To take one example from many, biographers repeat Napoleon's phrase: "Friendship is only a word. I love no man."