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Home / Historical Periods / Age of Revolutions / Napoleonic Era

Period

Napoleonic Era

1798–1815 CE

The Napoleonic Era covers the years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise, rule, wars, and final defeat. It grew out of the French Revolution and drew France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, Denmark-Norway, and many smaller states into repeated conflict. Its setting stretches beyond continental Europe into the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, North America, Egypt, and Russia.

For historical fiction, the period is unusually rich because public events and private lives are constantly forced together. Soldiers, sailors, officers, spies, civilians, aristocrats, merchants, prisoners, and displaced families can all plausibly be caught inside the same historical pressure. The era allows novels to move between battlefield action, naval warfare, occupation, revolution, romance, espionage, social ambition, and political betrayal.

Specific fiction connections include Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series for the army experience, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin novels and C. S. Forester’s Hornblower novels for the naval war, and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series for an alternate-history version of the conflict. Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army show how the era can also be treated through society, family life, memory, and the emotional consequences of war.

Related people for Napoleonic Era

Aaron Burr1756–1836 Alexander Hamilton1757–1804 Alexander I of Russia1777–1825 André Masséna1758–1817 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852 Beau Brummell1778–1840 Bernard Dubourdieu1773–1811 Bernardo O’Higgins1778–1842 Carl von Clausewitz1780–1831 Catherine the Great1729-1796 Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois1761–1848 Charles Arbuthnot1767–1850 Charles James Fox1749–1806 Charles XIV John of Sweden1763–1844 Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth1757–1833 Francisco de Miranda1750–1816 Frederick VI of Denmark1768–1839 George III1738–1820 George IV of the United Kingdom1762–1830 George Washington1732–1799 Giacomo Casanova1725–1798 Giuseppe Garibaldi1807–1882 Henry Lambertc. 18th century–1813 Henry Sheehy Keating1775–1847 Home Riggs Popham1762–1820 Horatio Nelson1758–1805 James Lawrence1781–1813 James Madison1751–1836 Jane Austen1775–1817 Jean-de-Dieu Soult1769–1851 Jean Maximilien Lamarque1770–1832 John Adams1735–1826 John Moore1761–1809 Joséphine de Beauharnais1763–1814 Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith1798–1872 Lachlan Macquarie1762–1824 Louis-Philippe I1773–1850 Louis XVIII of France1755–1824 Louis XVI of France1754–1793 Manuel Lisa1772–1820 Marie Antoinette1755–1793 Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma1791–1847 Maximilien Robespierre1758–1794 Michel Ney1769–1815 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla1753–1811 Miguel I of Portugal1802–1866 Mikhail Kutuzov1747–1813 Napoleon1769–1821 Napoleon III1808–1873 Pauline Bonaparte1780–1825 Pedro I of Brazil1798–1834 Philip Broke1776–1841 Pierre-Charles Villeneuve1763–1806 Pyotr Bagration1765–1812 Robert Clive1725–1774 Robert Corbetc. 18th century–1810 Robert Fulton1765–1815 Robert Townsend Farquhar1776–1830 Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill1772–1842 Shaka1787–1828 Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet1755–1824 Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet1757–1829 Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet1787–1860 Sir Sidney Smith1764–1840 Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald1775–1860 Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch1748–1843 Thomas Stamford Raffles1781–1826 Tusun Pasha1794–1816 William Bainbridge1774–1833 William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford1768–1854 William Bligh1754–1817 William II of the Netherlands1792–1849 William Pitt the Younger1759–1806

Series

Series about Napoleonic Era (3 series)

Napoleonic Horseman in Order

by Griff Hosker 10 books 4.4

Napoleonic Horseman follows a cavalryman through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The series moves between French and British service, espionage, the Peninsular War, sieges and Waterloo, using mounted warfare to show how individual soldiers are pulled through the largest conflicts of the age.

Sharpe in Order

by Bernard Cornwell 26 books 4.3

The Sharpe series follows Richard Sharpe from service as a private soldier in India to command in the British Army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The novels place him at the Siege of Seringapatam, Battle of Assaye, Siege of Gawilghur, Battle of Trafalgar, British attack on Copenhagen,…

Wellington and Napoleon Quartet in Order

by Simon Scarrow 4 books 4.6

The quartet traces the parallel lives of Arthur Wellesley and Napoleon Bonaparte from their births in 1769 to the Battle of Waterloo. It follows their military education, political ambition and campaigns across Europe, India and the Mediterranean as two very different officers become the defining commanders of the…

Books

30 Best Novels About the Napoleonic Era

Bestselling authors first, then star rating.

Non Fiction

7 Non-Fiction Books About the Napoleonic Era

Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.