Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Royalty

Otto III (980-1002) was one of the most powerful rulers in Europe in the late tenth century. He is also one of the most enigmatic. The son of the German emperor Otto II and the Greek princess Theophanu, he came to the throne at the age of three and was only twenty-one years old at the time of his death. Nonetheless, his reign had a lasting impact on both Germany and Italy for generations. In this book, Gerd Althoff provides a much-needed biography of this fascinating figure. In the process, he uses Otto's life to explain how in practice early medieval kingship worked.

Richard I, the Lionheart, remains forever (and perhaps wrongly) the mythical king of England who preferred to wage war than to rule over his empire. The familiar epithet conveys all the principal features of his indomitable character: courage, valor, prowess, the pursuit of glory, the thirst for fame, generosity in war and peace, a sense of honor combined with a sort of haughty dignity made up of both arrogance and pride. In this book, Jean Flori examines both Richard's role as prince and king in history, and also analyses the different and sometimes controversial elements which, for the...

Anastasia--the name has become synonymous with enigma. the story of the youngest daughter of the last Russian czar has become one of the world's most favorite romantic fascinations, and is one of the strangest, saddest, most haunting riddle of the twentieth century: Did she escape the massacre of the Russian Royal family in 1917?

James Blair Lovell's exhaustive search for the truth culminates in the definitive book, the last word on the mystery of Anastasia. Drawn form eyewitness testimony, medical and scientific study, handwriting analysis, and a cache of thousands of documents,...

Henry of Bolingbroke was one of the most important noblemen of the later fourteenth century. Brave, chivalrous and cultured, a talented musician, he excelled at the jousts held at his cousin Richard II's Court, acquiring military experience at Radcot Bridge in Oxfordshire and later fighting with the Teutonic Knights in Prussia. A great medieval traveller, he visited Konigsberg as Earl of Derby, travelling to Danzig, Prague and later Venice and Jerusalem. Bitterly opposed to Richard II's favourites, Bolingbroke as one of the Lords Appellant played a vital part. Henry's most controversial...

Here is the tragic, stormy life of Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. Her story is a chronicle of courage and faith, betrayal and treachery-set amidst the splendor, pageantry, squalor, and intrigue of sixteenth-century Europe.

The history of Mary Tudor is an improbable blend of triumph, humiliation, heartbreak, and devotion-and Ms. Erickson recounts it all against the turbulent background of European politics, war, and religious strife of the mid-1500s. The result is a rare portrait of the times and of a woman elevated to unprecedented power in a world ruled...

As Maureen Quilligan wrote in the New York Times Book Review of The First Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn "was a real victim of the sexual scandals her brilliant daughter escaped, and a subject Ms. Erickson's sensitivity to sexual and political nuance should well serve." Indeed, Carolly Erickson could have chosen no more fascinating and appropriate a subject. Alluring and profoundly enigmatic, Anne Boleyn has eluded the grasp of historians for centuries.
Through her extraordinarily vivid re-creation of this most tragic chapter in all Tudor History, Carrolly Erickson gives us...

Alice Keppel, the married lover of Queen Victoria's eldest son and great-grandmother to Camilla Parker-Bowles, was a key figure in Edwardian society. Hers was the acceptable face of adultery. Discretion was her hallmark. It was her art to be the king's mistress and yet to laud the Royal Family and the institution of marriage. Formidable and manipulative, her attentions to the king brought her wealth, power, and status. Her daughter Violet Trefusis had a long tempestuous affair with the author and aristocrat Vita Sackville-West, during which Vita left her husband and two sons to travel...

In 1804, when Josephine Bonaparte knelt before her husband, Napoleon, to receive the imperial diadem, few in the vast crowd of onlookers were aware of the dark secrets hidden behind the imperial facade. To her subjects, she appeared to vet hew most favored woman in France: alluring, wealthy, and with the devoted love of a remarkable husband who was the conqueror of Europe. In actuality, Josephine's life was far darker, for her celebrated allure was fading, her wealth was compromised by massive debt, and her marriage was corroded by infidelity and abuse.

Josephine's life story was as...

In MARIE ANTOINETTE, Evelyn Lever draws on a variety of resources, including diaries, letters, and firsthand accounts, to write this sumptuous, addictive delight. From family life in Vienna to the choke of the guillotine, this gripping work combines a fast-paced historical narrative with all the elements of scandalous fiction: Marie's wedding at Versailles to Louis XVI, the French court, boredom, hypocrisy, loneliness, allies, enemies, scandal, intrigue, sex, peasant riots, the fall of the Bastille, mob rule in Paris, imprisonment, and, finally, execution.

From primary source...

This fascinating biography, full of new and original material from a noted British historian, chronicles the life of Queen Victoria and the passionate love she shared with the German Prince Albert. Victoria's reign embraced the industrialization of Britain, the creation of numerous inventions, and advances in transport undreamed of when she had come to the throne as a girl of barely eighteen years. Above all, the morality and style of living were transformed. Gone were the days of the raffish, improvident Hanoverian kings whose behavior tended to be emulated by the people. For twenty-one...

A sumptuous new biography of one of the most famous dangerous liaisons

When Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was a child, a fortune-teller predicted that she would one day be the mistress of a king. Born into the financial bourgeoisie that was a world apart from the royal court, the beautiful Jeanne Antoinette nonetheless fulfilled this prophecy by becoming Madame de Pompadour, the most famous and influential mistress of Louis XV. In this sumptuous biography, Evelyne Lever traces the enduring friendship between the monarch and his favorite, and the far-reaching implications-both...

From medieval conqueror to Renaissance autocrat to Victorian Empress to modern melodrama, Royal Panoply is the story of some of the most fascinating people in world history.

With her trademark blend of probing scholarship, lively prose, and psychological insight, Carolly Erickson focuses on each monarch's entire life---from the puny, socially awkward Charles I, to the choleric, violent William the Conqueror, to the well-meaning, deeply affectionate Queen Anne, who was so heavy she had to be carried to her coronation. Royal Panoply recaptures the event-filled, often...

One of history's most misunderstood figures, Marie Antoinette represents the extravagance and the decadence of pre-Revolution France. Yet there was an innocence about Antoinette, thrust as a child into the chillingly formal French court.

Married to the maladroit, ill-mannered Dauphin, Antoinette found pleasure in costly entertainments and garments. She spent lavishly while her overtaxed and increasingly hostile subjects blamed her for France's plight. In time Antoinette matured into a courageous Queen, and when their enemies finally closed in, Antoinette followed her inept husband to...

The House of Windsor: Is it a hangover from the past, an expensive anachronism, a relic of a bygone age of deference and hierarchy, or is it as important and relevant as ever?

However you look at it, the royal family is a big business, though one with more ups and downs than the stock market. Prince Philip calls it "The Firm," and all the royal executives and their powerful associates are supposed to make every effort to avoid even a hint of scandal that could diminish the reputation of the family business.

Unfortunately for the royals, for the past twenty years scandal and...