For the first six years of his life Napoleon Bonaparte was a prisoner on St Helena, a tiny volcanic island in the middle of the South Atlantic ocean. There were more than two thousand British soldiers stationed there to ensure he did not escape, and the former emperor and his companions lived in a tumbling house, battered day and night by the trade winds. THE EMPEROR’S LAST STAND is a book about St Helena, an island with a sad, strange history, and about the tangle of stories and myths, absurdities and simple facts that have accumulated around Napoleon and his sojourn there. It follows him through the eyes of those who lived with him, who guarded him, who managed only to catch a brief glimpse of him, alive or dead. It is also a personal account: a description of Julia Blackburn’s own journey to St Helena and at the same time a journey through the private memories and associations evoked by the telling of this poignant and curious story.