Marie Antoinette. Bildnis eines mittleren CharaktersMarie Antoinette. Bildnis eines mittleren Charakters
What it's about
Marie Antoinette was fourteen when she left Austria to marry the future Louis XVI of France. Stefan Zweig follows her from the glittering, frivolous years at Versailles, where she became a symbol of royal excess, through the French Revolution, her family's imprisonment, her husband's execution, her trial, and her own death on the guillotine in 1793. He shows how an ordinary woman was shaped and destroyed by extraordinary events.
Why it's worth reading
It spent months at #1 on the New York Times list in the 1930s. Zweig was one of the most popular writers in the world, and his psychological biographies still read beautifully.
You'll love it if you liked
Peter the Great: His Life and World, War and Peace or The Guns of August
Good to know
Zweig takes some liberties with interpretation, and later historians have revised parts of the story. It's sympathetic to her.
By the numbers
- Readers96 out of 100 · counts 40%+44
- Critics0 out of 100 · counts 14%+0
- Bestseller43 out of 100 · counts 32% (its stronger lane)+15
- Buzz0 out of 100 · counts 15%+0
Critics and Bestseller are two ways to earn a place: a book's stronger one counts more. Buzz rewards recent bestseller weeks and prizes, so older books start at zero.
#1 New York Times bestseller (15 weeks at #1). 4.40★ from 11K Goodreads ratings.
Where it ranks
- #55 of the 168 memoirs and biographies we rank
- #65 of the 154 history books we rank
- #112 of the 519 classics we rank
- #284 of the 1,404 books we rank
Bestseller
- #1 New York Times bestseller (15 weeks at #1)
Reads as
True story
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