This book does not purport to be a definitive biography of Napoleon. Indeed I wonder if such a thing is possible, short of a multi-volume life along the lines of Martin Gilbert's lifetime work on Churchill, and even then there must be doubts whether any one individual could fully master all the sources dealing with the multitudinous aspects of such a complex life. As the great French scholar Frederic Masson found, after spending a lifetime studying the Emperor, Napoleon becomes more elusive and more enigmatic the more one knows about him. I have therefore set myself the modest task of attempting a clear synthesis of our existing knowledge of this extraordinary colossus who convulsed the world for two decades.