Bury Napoleon on Elba!
by James J Sebastian

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Colonel Neil Campbell, the British Commissioner assigned to remain with Napoleon Bonaparte when he is exiled to the island of Elba, struggles with his moral failure, cowardice as he calls it, in having accepted an order to assassinate the Emperor. Britain, fearful of an escape and its potential consequences for Europe, orders the assassination. Colonel Campbell is consumed with guilt over his cowardice and must find a way to repair the tear in his conscience and redeem himself. The question he asks himself: Am I duty bound to carry out a military order or, can I exercise my free will in deciding whether or not to carry out an order? His answer determines Napoleon’s fate.

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"Sebastian offers a dramatic reimagining of Napoleon’s notorious escape from his imprisonment on the Island of Elba in this historical novel. In 1814, after his military campaign disastrously fail in Moscow, Napoleon is forced to abdicate his power and is exiled to Elba, a “very small, windswept, and barren island” off the western coast of Italy. Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, discovers a plot to rescue Napoleon from captivity, one hatched by Russian tsar Alexander in the author’s inventive [...] rewriting of the historical record. Alexander’s grand plan to is to wage war with Britain and make his own navy preeminent in the world, but he needs to build a Europeancoalition quickly and can only do so with Napoleon’s help. In order to prevent this catastrophe, Col. Neil Campbell, a decorated British officer, is sent to Elba with Napoleon, officially to watch him vigilantly, unofficially to assassinate him—a charge he finds morally unsavory. “This defies natural justice, and would leave me no better than a common criminal. To follow this order is to bring shame on myself and besmirch forever the name and good reputation of the Campbell clan. It is wrong.” The literary license the author takes with historical fact is the core of the novel, and he does so in a way that is intellectually stimulating…A provocative literary exercise in historical revisionism." —Kirkus Reviews

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A dash of curiosity about the Napoleonic era and its outsized characters combined with a cup of compassion for a human being seeking redemption inspired the author to weave a story about a man grappling with a guilty conscience. Guilt consumes the soul and, with the author's help, Colonel Campbell finds a way forward.

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Contributors

Author

James J Sebastian

Illustrator

Chelo Sebastian

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