
Napoleon’s Miniaturized Traveling Library - zenlot
http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/napoleons-kindle-see-the-miniaturized-traveling-library-he-took-on-military-campaigns.html
======
athenot
\- For religion, he wanted: both (bible) testaments, the Quoran, history of
the Church.

\- Epics: Homère, Lucain, Le Tasse, Télémarque, La Henriade

\- Tragedies: some Corneille, Racine (minus a few), Voltaire. No Molière

\- History: some chronology works and works on the Roman Empire

He didn't want many memoires and "useless dissertations".

As a side-note this started in July 1808 and by December he was complaining
that there wasn't enough new content.

The full project never got executed, only a subset ever got produced and
apparently it wasn't satisfactory.

Source: Les Bibliothèques particulière de L'Empereur Napoléon, Antoine
Guillois, 1900 —
[http://bibnum.enc.sorbonne.fr/omeka/files/original/0ac1be913...](http://bibnum.enc.sorbonne.fr/omeka/files/original/0ac1be91312051774cb5436fab7eff4d.pdf)

------
gwerbin
Articles like this always make me wonder about the effect of technology,
particularly easy access to the Internet at all times, on my generation (born
in the late 80s and early 90s).

That discussion -- about attention spans, finding exactly what you're looking
for versus having to interpret a static document, etc. -- has been had a
million times on this site and elsewhere. But it struck me that he didn't ask
for digests or something like that. For Napoleon, evidently there was more to
these books than their information content alone.

------
Jerry2
Very cool! Unfortunately, no one seems to have a list of books that were in
it. I wonder what Napoleon liked to read...

~~~
jhbadger
This "Life of Wellington" mentions the capture of Napoleon's traveling library
and mentions that they found the works of Homer, the Bible, Ossian (a supposed
ancient Scottish poet now thought to be fraudulent), and a work of Voltaire.

[https://books.google.com/books?id=pqv_06RS6XcC&lpg=PA536&ots...](https://books.google.com/books?id=pqv_06RS6XcC&lpg=PA536&ots=XAF9qrRA8Y&pg=PA519)

~~~
cafard
Nabokov has curious things to say about the influence of Ossian (maybe in the
introduction to his translation of the Song of Igor's Campaign?).

------
njharman
Anti-Adblock or something said

> You value our content ...

Less than you think. Certainly not as much as my time, attention, and
security. Bye.

------
jay-anderson
Does anyone know how small the books were? There's nothing in the picture to
give a sense of scale.

~~~
d_theorist
The article mentions that they were "small 12mo", which is a standard size
(also called a duodecimo) corresponding to 5 x 7.375 inches.

------
rootedbox
I heard you like books... so I put a books in your book.

~~~
fnordian_slip
Just in case you are wondering why you are being downvoted:

This sort of low-effort joke is generally frowned upon here.

While it might be fun to some, it would ultimately lead to many more comments
that do not add to the discussion, and thereby dilute the overall experience.

~~~
mercer
Said account is 5.5 years old, so they know what's what. Furthermore, judging
by their comment history, this user as a habit of posting low-quality comments
interspersed with enough 'real person' stuff, I suppose, to prevent a ban. I'm
not a fan.

