Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman (Grove Great Lives) - Softcover

Zweig, Stefan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802139094 ISBN 13: 9780802139092

Publisher: Grove Press, 2002

Synopsis

Life at the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette has long captivated readers, drawn by accounts of the intrigues and pageantry that came to such a sudden and unexpected end. Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman is a dramatic account of the guillotine's most famous victim, from the time when as a fourteen-year-old she took Versailles by storm, to her frustrations with her aloof husband, her passionate love affair with the Swedish Count von Fersen, and ultimately to the chaos of the French Revolution and the savagery of the Terror. An impassioned narrative, Zweig's biography focuses on the human emotions of the participants and victims of the French Revolution, making it both an engrossingly compelling read and a sweeping and informative history.
"Certainly no one can arise unmoved from the reading of this powerful work." -- The New Republic
"Excellent biography." -- The New York Times

About this title

About the Author:

Stefan Zweig (born November 28, 1881, Vienna, Austria – died February 22, 1942, Petrópolis, Brazil), was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer was one of the most successful and popular authors of the 20th Century. Although he wrote in German, his works were translated into English and several other languages. Zweig was a prolific writer. In the 1930s he was one of the most widely translated authors in the world. His extensive travels led him to India, Africa, North and Central America, and Russia. Zweig's friends included Maksim Gorky, Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin, and Arturo Toscanini. Strangely, at the peak of his popularity and having just completed his autobiography while still working on four other books, Zweig committed suicide in Brazil with his new wife by them both taking poison. In 1939, he had married Charlotte Altmann, his secretary from 1933. She was twenty-seven years his junior. Zweig left a suicide note stating that he had done so because of the Nazi takeover of his country of Austria and because Europe was destroying itself with World War II that was taking place.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0802139094
• ISBN 13: 9780802139092
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496