by John Cook
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Obviously, most publishers are not experts on a period and so, it was passed to a couple of people to read over and give their opinions on its marketability. The advice received from those people, presumably with their fingers on the pulse, was that this was too obscure a campaign and so, the book was too detailed. Something on Aspern/Wagram would be better - aside from the obvious point that five years ago, few people were interested in 1809 at all, how can you understand what happened in the summer battles without knowing what went before? Obscure? "To the end of his life, Napoleon was proud of the five days' fighting that ensued" (Dr. Chandler: Campaigns of Napoleon, p.682). The 1811 French flag included 'Eckmuhl' amongst the eight battle honours which could be displayed on it. Both Bowden and Petre include it in their series - even Arms and Armour claimed good sales for 'Crisis on the Danube' (Arnold 1990). Obviously, publishers must publish books which sell and they can make money on, so that they can stay in business and produce more worthwhile books. However, the pursuit of sales on popular subjects has led to at least two recent fiascos in allegedly factual publishing - not just Mr. Cromwell, but the WW2 'Operation JB' about an alleged rescue of Nazi, Martin Bormann, (To quote Robert Harris in the Sunday Times, 8th September 1996: "To publish a supposed work of history knowing it almost certainly to be false, to hype it yet at the same time try to weasel out of responsibility for it - that is surely as commercially cynical as it is morally bankrupt."). These two shameful episodes shouldn't obscure the fact that independent publishers genuinely wish to bring new, reliable material into the public domain. However, sales are of course pointing them to Sharpe's Cookbook and yet more on Waterloo. More ADC Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #37 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |
Events have moved quite rapidly since FE's March edition. For UK readers, Sharpe and his chums have fought their way through Waterloo and European reenactors have marked the bicentennial of the end of the War of the First Coalition at Leoben. Not much however has changed on the book front, although I have a greater understanding of the problem publishers face. In response to an apparent wish for translations of the key Continental works, I offered a translation of part of the first volume of Krieg 1809, the Austrian Staff History of that campaign, to a publisher.