Books: Road to St. Helena

ONCE THERE WAS A MAN NAPOLEON—Joseph Delteil—Translated by Lewis Galantiere—Covici, Friede ($3).

Author Joseph Delteil has not written an ordinary biography of Napoleon. After you read this book you may well doubt whether Author Delteil could write an ordinary book about anything. Once There Was a Man Napoleon is a sometimes thundering, sometimes blustering, sometimes mellifluous narrative poem written in prose (it reads as if it had been exceedingly well translated). The hero is not so much the man as the idea, Napoleon. Not that Author Delteil warps the facts of history; but...