In the books world, it has certainly inspired dealer Tom Donovan.
Donovan, of Turner Donovan Military Books, is a specialist with a 5000-title stock of rare and out-of-print books on British military history from 1800-1945, which he sells online and at book fairs.
He is one of the 12 military book specialists among 80 exhibitors who will be standing at Etc Fairs' Bloomsbury Book Fair in London on Sunday, August 9, at the Royal National Hotel.
It is the third such collaboration with the organiser Kim Jeffery.
In this 200th anniversary year, Donovan will be bringing a selection of books on the Waterloo campaign.
The highest price, at £225, is for a scarce first edition of General Cavalié Mercer's Journal of the Waterloo Campaign, in two volumes published by Blackwood in 1870.
Mercer commanded the 9th Brigade of the Royal Artillery.
The lowest-priced book Donovan is taking to the fair is A Voice from Waterloo: A History of the Battle Fought on 18th June 1815… by Sgt Major Cotton of the late 7th Hussars. Priced at £25, this is the eighth edition of a book which was printed in 1895 for the author who became an established 'Guide and Describer of the Battle'.
Donovan says: "If I collected books on the Waterloo campaign or era I would choose the Mercer, as it is a cornerstone among accounts of the battle, and is a very nice copy of the first edition in the publisher's original blue cloth.
"The Cotton may not be expensive but it remains a charming little book by another participant, who dedicated his post-army life to guiding and directing visitors to Waterloo, where he was proprietor of a museum of relics of the battle."
