First, an apology for the delay in getting this issue of AoN to you. It's partly due to the introduction of a new title in the Partisan Press imprint, Battlefields, and partly because I had to type up some quite lengthy articles, as you will see.

Secondly, some thanks and Brownie points to Lionel Leventhal and Rod Gander for another successful Napoleonic Fair. I know it was successful because when I got home I had to have copious libations of Old Ma Murgatroyd's Throat Relaxant and Goat Purge after talking too much. To all those omis and palones, bona to vada your eeks and to discuss future input; there's some interesting stuff coming up in the next few issues. Next year, I hope to actually look around, and see if I can persuade some poor trader to allow me to divest myself of a wad!

Finally, we have a competition for you, with a chance to win a copy of the re-printed Napoleon's Great Adversary, by Gunther Rothenberg, from Spellmount, so get those thinking caps on.

Keep the faith.

Next Issue

The next issue of AoN is somewhat special, as it will be given over almost completely to a single topic, Napoleon's Garde Imperiale. Written by John Grehan and Phil Wilkins, and with illustrations by Ian Storer, it will cover the history, organisation and the uniforms of probably the most famous unit of the Napoleonic period. Issue 18 will be available in July.

We hope that this will be the first in a series of Age of Napoleon Specials. This first one will be sent to subscribers as part of their normal yearly run, but it will go on general sale at 3.99. If you want to take out, or renew, your subscription, we must receive it no later than the end of June.

I Heard it on the Grapevine

At the Partizan Press Napoleonic Weekend 1993, Paul Chamberlain reported that he had heard that an edited edition of Oman's History of the Peninsular War was in the pipeline. At that time, I began wracking my brain trying to think what would be cut out, and whether such butchery could be justified. Nothing further came of it, and I have now heard from Lionel Leventhal that Greenhill Books are proposing to publish the series in their entirety. Volumes 1 and 2 should be out in September and October respectively. This will be a very important event, and Lionel deserves a great deal of thanks and support for this, especially since September is my birthday, and guess what's going at the top of my list? (Next is all the Power Ranger's stuff I didn't get for Christmas)

Also up-coming, this time from Arms and Armour Press are the paperback edition of the Napoleonic Source Book by Philip Haythornthwaite (Summer '95), the re-issue of his Uniforms of the Retreat from Moscow in the same larger format as the Peninsula one, (Summer '95) and a volume called Die Hard, also by Haythornthwaite, in Summer '96. This is to be 'a re-creation of the atmosphere of the Napoleonic battlefield in a series of colourful incidents retold with skill and accuracy by a masterful historian.'

Finally, Arms and Armour are going to produce a series under the title of Napoleonic Weapons and Warfare, which will be illustrated textbooks on such subjects as Strategy and Grand Tactics, Cavalry, Fortification and Siegecraft, Infantry, Naval Warfare and Artillery. Date for these appear to be 1996 and 1998.