Napoleon’s Unpublished Manuscript Up for Auction

By Dianna Dilworth 

An unpublished manuscript for a novel written by historic French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte is up for auction.

Bonhams in New York will auction the work off on Sept. 21. The item is expected to fetch around $250,000. The Guardian has the scoop:

The text, which was never published gained wide attention: he was a failed novelist. The French publishing house Fayard had released the full version of Napoleon’s novella, Clisson et Eugénie, culled from six far-flung, ink-blotted manuscript fragments. That same year, the rediscovery and subsequent sale in France of one of its pages for €24,000 ($27,000) stimulated yet more interest in the emperor’s literary prose.