The Man Who Had Been King

Patricia Tyson Stroud is an independent scholar who lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and East Blue Hill, Maine. She is the author of The Emperor of Nature: Charles-Lucien Bonaparte and His World, which won the Athenaeum of Philadelphia Literary Award, and Thomas Say: New World Naturalist, both published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. She is a fellow of the International Napoleonic Society.

"Were he in Joseph's shoes, Napoleon told a visitor, 'I would found a great empire of all Spanish America.' But Joseph will 'spend his fortune in making gardens.' Napoleon knew his brother. Stroud describes how the elder Bonaparte made Point Breeze, an estate on the Delaware River in New Jersey, a showcase for its grounds and for its art collection, shipped from Europe."-The Chronicle of Higher Education "The book dwells on the seventeen years Joseph Bonaparte spent in the United States... On American shores Joseph may have lived the happiest years of his life, the life of a good-natured and learned country squire, free from the obligation to lend a hand to the making of history. Thanks to Patricia Tyson Stroud's extensive research and fluid narrative American readers will be glad to make the acquaintance of Napoleon's older brother."-Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography