Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King - Hardcover

Fraser, Lady Antonia

3.87

7,822 ratings by Goodreads

9780297829973: Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297829971 ISBN 13: 9780297829973

Publisher: Orion, 2006

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The book centres around the Sun King and his relationship with numerous and fascinating women. Naturally dividing into five parts it will concentrate on the King's mother, Anne of Austria, to whom he was devoted; his first important mistress, Louise de la Valliere, who bore him several illegitimate children; Athenais Marquise de Montespan, who acted as unofficial Queen of Versailles until her involvement in the affair of poisons, and of course Marie Therese, his wife; and Madame de Maintenon, governess to the illegitimate royal children. The fifth part concentrates on his relations in old age with his daughters, granddaughters and the wife of his grandson. It will vividly bring to life the vast edifice of Louis XIV's court - the magnificence, artistic splendour, elaborate ritual and in some cases, absurdity and misery.

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Review:

bringing vividly to life the fairytale dazzle of the most splendid court in Western history..... lively and wholly absorbing. (Matthew Dennison THE TIMES)

Antonia Fraser long ago mastered the art of writing meticulous history so that it reads like an engrossing novel, and her latest offering is no exception. (Virginia Rounding THE SUNDAY TIMES)

an impressively researched and crafted book� (Munro Price THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

no one writes about historical women as well as she does. (Jennifer Selway DAILY EXPRESS)

a wonderfully rounded portrait of the philandering king.... Fraser has evoked a world by exercising the gifts that make her one of the most brilliant biographers of our time: her scholarship and her great humanity. Precise details bring the past to life. (Ruth Scurr THE DAILY TELEGRAPH)

All the scandal and brilliance and bling of Louis and his ladies is shown in context - social, dynastic, political, religious - but depicted so deftly and vividly that you're there... This is an intriguing insight into the shifting roles of aristocratic women in 17th-century France. (Ian Ramsey TATLER)

entralling new biography...... her prose veers between the authoritative and the racey and makes excellent use of contemporary sources, creating the most enjoyable domestic biography of Louis since Nancy Mitford's The Sun King, 40 years ago. (Michael Arditti THE DAILY MAIL)

As she demonstrated in previous biographies of Charles II and Marie Antoniette, for esoteric detail, for marrying moments of grace and wit, no other historian is Fraser's equal. (Tome Dewe Matthews THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY)

Written with a rare combination of sympathy, erudition and high literary accomplishment, this book is a delight. It leaves no doubt as to why Antonia Fraser who, in another age, might well have been a star of Louis's court, is, instead, the reigning doyenne of British historians. (John Adamson THE MAIL ON SUNDAY)

Fraser's narrative is balanced, wise and entertaining. This is clearly the book she was born to write. (Jonathan Keates LITERARY REVIEW)

Book Description:

The new bestseller from Antonia Fraser

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