The idea of writing a biography of Napoleon was suggested to Sir
Walter Scott in late May 1825 by his bookseller-partner Archibald
Constable, who proposed that 'the Author of Waverley' produce such a
work—to be in four volumes—for his projected 'Miscellany'.[1] A mere two years later (28 June
1827)
appeared the nine volumes of The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,
Emperor of the French. With a preliminary view of the French Revolution.
By the Author of "Waverley," &c.,, a publication long known
to
be peppered
with cancels—indeed, Ruff has identified 125 of them.
[2]. The cancels were occasioned for
the most
part by the need to correct matters of fact—dates, points of the
compass,
the names of protagonists, the geographical relationship of combatants, and
so on—and, less often, of grammar (notably errors in agreement).
Not
all errors, however, were corrected by this process of extensive
cancellation, for each volume has in addition an errata slip; and Ruff
records that the second edition, also dated 1827, contains 28 further
cancels. Scott erred in matters of fact essentially because of the
circumstances in which
Napoleon was written; it is the
purpose
of this essay (i) to recount those circumstances and then (ii) to add notes
supplementary to Ruff's on the cancels.
