Edited by Victor Sutcliffe
Published by Ken Trotman, 418 pages, hardbound, price 18.50 pounds

This is a most useful reference book listing 3,530 works relating to the military history of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The bulk of the works listed are rare, long since out-of-print books that can only be found in the larger collections held in major libraries such as in the British Museum. As such, it provides the student of the period with an invaluable listing of source material much of which he may not have been aware of. While most of the material is in the English language, there is also a substantial listing of French works, with a few in other languages.

The works are listed alphabetically, by author, and each is given a number. At the back of the book, there are a number of indices listing the works by subjects such as campaigns, regimental history, army organisation, biographies and miscellaneous. Although a little awkward to use, these indices assist the student to locate books suitable for his research. Personally, this reviewer would have preferred the books to be listed by subject in the main body of the text, with the index giving an alphabetical list of the authors, but one notes that this catalogue was written by one bookseller and published by another. Both sell their wares through catalogues listing the authors alphabetically. One would also have preferred for this bibliography to have been more selective in what it contained. Lists of Osprey books, etc. do little to encourage serious research, and much of the material newly published this side of the First World War is of limited use. Nevertheless, this remains a most useful reference work.

This work compares favourably with other Napoleonic bibliographies. Horward's, published by Greenhill some years ago is now out-of-print. It had the advantage of listing works by categories, with each section having a short bibliographical essay. Its disadvantages included the apparently subjective choice of works included. Still available as a reprint is Kircheisen's 'Bibliographie des Napoleonischen Zeitalters'. The first volume was originally published in 1908, the second in 1912. The entire work was never finished, for obvious reasons. This bibliography had the objective of listing every work on the period ever published, and also listed then by category. Within each category, the books are listed by the date of publication which makes them a little difficult to locate.

An index was never produced, and the several first rate works produced for the centenary of the campaigns of 1813-15 are not included. The published catalogues of the libraries of the Austrian and Prussian military libraries are also most useful references. In short, there is no comprehensive, complete and easily useable bibliography of the period. One hopes that a publisher will attempt to fill this gap in the market, making use of CD ROM technology and offering an update service.

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