Benét, Stephen Vincent. "The Curfew Tolls"
Divergence: 1737 CE
What if: Napoleon was born much earlier, say in 1737.
Summary: An Englishman residing on the Mediterranean coast of France meets a retired, frustrated French artillery major.
Published: In Saturday Evening Post Oct. 5, 1935; Moonlight Traveler (ed. Philip van Doren Stern), Doubleday 1942; v.t. Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, Pocket 1954; Selected Works, II: Prose, Farrar & Rinehart 1942; 25 Short Stories, Sun Dial 1943; The Stephen Vincent Benét Pocket Book, Pocket 1946; Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of Several Worlds, Farrar & Rinehart 1971, Books for Libraries 1971 (0836937937), Franklin Library 1982; Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature (ed. Alberto Manguel), Picador 1983 (0330281410); and Alternative Histories: Eleven Stories of the World as It Might Have Been (eds. Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg), q.v.
Original in: English.
Translation: Italian by Carla Della Casa as "Suona la campana della sera", in I mondi del possibile (ed. Piergiorgio Nicolazzini), q.v.