Napoleon’s hundred days between Elba and Waterloo form the setting of this historical novel which exploits the adventures of a young Englishman and a French maid in the secret service of Napoleon. “Mr. Pemberton has borrowed the very lady who appears in Mr. Bernard Shaw’s ‘Man of destiny’—Mr. Shaw himself borrowed the lady from more or less authentic history—and provided her with adventures enough to fill the usual number of pages which, outwardly, at least, constitute a novel.” (N. Y. Times.)
“It is a stirring tale, and the characterization is skillful. Occasionally the author’s style fails him.”
| + — | Ath. 1905, 2: 432. S. 30. 290w. |
“The story offers the conventional blend of fact and romantic fiction, is narrated in somewhat indistinct fashion, and proves but moderately exciting.” Wm. M. Payne.
| + — | Dial. 39: 208. O. 1, ‘05. 100w. | |
| N. Y. Times. 10: 621. S. 23, ‘05. 250w. |
“The story is stirring and the tale is picturesquely told; the plot is hackneyed.”
| + — | Outlook. 81: 279. S. 30, ‘05. 60w. |
Pepys, Sir William Weller. Later Pepys; ed. with introd., by Alice C. C. Gaussen. 2v. [*]$7.50. Lane.
“The letters included in these two handsomely bound and finely illustrated volumes have been selected from the correspondence of Sir William Pepys between the years 1758 and 1825. Sir William Pepys was a descendant of the elder branch of the family to which Samuel Pepys belonged, and was generally well-known in the latter part of the eighteenth century as a friend, and in some cases the intimate, of distinguished literary characters of the period. His letters are therefore primarily of literary interest, very little reference being made in them to ordinary political or social conditions of the times, even the stirring events of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars receiving but scant notice.”—Am. Hist. R.
“The only direct historical interest is in the occasional references to contemporary historical writers and criticisms upon them. They frequently do present some striking incident, or some intimate characterization of figures in the field of contemporaneous literature. In this connection alone are they valuable for the student of history.” E. D. Adams.