Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Marie Antoinette : The Journey by Antonia Fraser ISBN: 0-385-48949-8 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 12 November, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (45 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The 'Austrian Woman' Revealed
Comment: I just finished this book last night. I picked it up on the recommendation of a friend, knowing nothing about Marie Antoinette or this particular era of French history. I finished the book, voraciously reading its final chapters.
The "Austrian Woman's" story is completely fascinating as told by Antonia Fraser. Ms. Fraser rebukes a lot of scurrilous stories and assumptions that have been made over the past few hundreds years regarding the French Queen. Although I was not familiar with some of the rumors (lesbianism, orgies, lovers, and more excesses) it is easy, after reading the book, to see how these stories became attached to Marie Antoinette.
Fraser illustrates the life of a Royal as a difficult position. The Machiavellian intrigues of court life are fascinating. Even the day-to-day events like the dressing of the Queen are shown to be hilarious in their courtly pomp. Particularly interesting is how Fraser dramatizes what it must have been like to have an entire country direct its dissatisfaction at the Queen. The final chapters detailing the imprisonment of the Royal Family in the tower are heartbreaking, no matter what their excesses were. As the end approaches and the Queen's close friend's head was paraded around on a pike, one wonders why the Royals were meant to suffer so.
Ms. Fraser treats her subject fairly. She seems to admire Marie Antoinette, but doesn't excuse some of her miscalculations. Fraser's summation in the final chapters is particularly enlightening.
I highly recommend Antonia Fraser's MARIE ANTOINETTE: THE JOURNEY. It is an engrossing read, and the court life of Marie and King Louis XVI is quite fascinating.
Rating: 5
Summary: The real Marie Antoinette
Comment: Antonia Fraser does a wonderful job of describing what Marie Antoinette was like as a person. She shows how the young girl, who was only fifteen when she married, became the Queen of France and grew into a mature woman while in the strange environment of the Court of Versailles where privacy was unknown for the Royal family, even to the point of reports being made of her sex life with the King and when her menstrual periods occurred. It seems everyone in the court knew everything, in embarrassing detail, about the young Queen.
The book explains well, however, how the Queen coped with this life on display, especially during the early years of her marriage when many ridiculed her for not producing an heir, and gives one a sense of knowing her personally. That makes the book a captivating read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Romance, reality and terror
Comment: I have read numerous books on this topic, from Quentin Reynolds 1950's schoolbook biography through the memoirs of Madame Campan and Oliver Bernier's edition of the letters between Marie Antoinette and her mother, Empress Maria Theresa. In none of these previous books have I found the small touches of personality which humanize this well-biographed personality of Revolutionary France. In specific, I find the details of her relationship to her own daughter, Marie Therese, of great interest. That Marie Antoinette was aware of the reasonably immature snobbishness of her daughter is an interesting insight. Of course the incredible brutality of the revolutionaries - in the name of freedom - and the making of both the king and his wife into scapegoats, as well as the vileness of the pamplets published by ambitious would be kings and unfortunately, relatives of the king create sympathy for both monarchs. The revolution was about the abolition of privilege, yet the very people taking down the nobility, took on their former privileges for themselves, and would soon replace the late Louis XVI with his two brothers, a nephew and two emperors, demonstrating how pointless the deaths of the monarchs was. Revolution, indeed.
 |
Title: The Private Realm of Marie Antoinette by Marie-France Boyer, Francois Halard ISBN: 0500016909 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
 |
Title: The Wives of Henry VIII by ANTONIA FRASER ISBN: 067973001X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 30 November, 1993 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser ISBN: 038531129X Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Madame De Pompadour by Nancy Mitford, Amanda Foreman ISBN: 094032265X Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: 12 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman (Great Grove Lives) by Stefan Zweig, Eden Paul, Cedar Paul ISBN: 0802139094 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
