Skip to main content

The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria by Joan Haslip: A Book Review

The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria
Author: Joan Haslip
Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography
Publisher: Phoenix
Release Date: 2000
Pages: 464
Source: My State Public Library
Synopsis: Consort to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, Elizabeth was a modern woman who fled the confines of Habsburg to roam free--she fancied dangerous riding, sailing and poetry--but her life ended with her assassination in 1896. 
  
    My Review: Elisabeth of Austria is considered to be one of Europe’s most beautiful queens. At the age of 15, Elisabeth caught the eye of Emperor Franz Joseph, who was at the time courting her sister. The Emperor immediately fell in love with her and decided to marry her. At first Elisabeth’s marriage seemed to be a fairy-tale. However, her love for Franz Joseph quickly deteriorated. Suffering from an overbearing mother-in-law and a stiff court, Empress Elisabeth left her husband, her family, and her duties as an Empress. Over the course of 35 years, she traveled the countries of Europe, sightseeing and going to spas. This is the story of the Empress who was never happy with being queen.

     I came away from the book intensely disliking Elisabeth of Austria. While the author gives us the impression of the Empress having a mental illness that was inherited from her mother's side, she was still a very unsympathetic figure. Mrs. Haslip portrays Elisabeth as self-absorbed, vain, and narcissistic. She did not care about her husband and her two eldest surviving children. She did not care for her country, and politics bored her. The Empress only cared about her beauty and her personal pleasures. She spent millions traveling the world and even built a palace that she quickly tired of. She wanted everyone to fawn over and worship her like a goddess on Mount Olympus.

     Mrs. Haslip also paints a one-sided portrait of Franz Joseph. The author shows that he does not have any flaws. Even when he has affairs, Mrs. Haslip quickly dismisses it and blames the Empress’s sentimental behavior. Franz Joseph is described as a lonely man. He always misses and longs for his wife. He writes her many letters during her absence. He is overindulgent and never refuses the Empress anything. He spends millions trying to make her happy, much to the disapproval of his subjects.

     Overall, this was a very unsympathetic but fascinating look at Elisabeth of Austria. Elisabeth is a very complex figure and it is hard for anyone to try to understand her. However, The Lonely Empress was very well-written and meticulously researched. It shows the splendor, glitz, and glamour of the Austrian court. The Lonely Empress tells a tragic tale of a woman who longed to escape the harshness of reality into a world of a dreams and fairy tales.

 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) by Alhena Gadotti: A Book Review

Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess (Routledge Ancient Biographies) Author: Alhena Gadotti Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Routledge Publication Date: May 2, 2025 Pages: 132 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: Enheduana: Princess, Priestess, Poetess offers the first comprehensive biography of Enheduana, daughter of Sargon of Agade and one of the most intriguing, yet elusive, women from antiquity.      Royal princess, priestess, and alleged author, Enheduana deserves as much attention as her martial relatives. A crucial contributor to her father’s military ambitions, Enheduana nonetheless wielded religious and economic power, as evidenced by primary and secondary sources. Even more interestingly, Enheduana remained alive in the cultural memory of those who came after her, so much so that works attributed to her were integrated into the scribal curriculum centuries after her death. This book aims to situate Enheduana in her own histor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World's First Author by Sophus Helle: A Book Review

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author Author: Sophus Helle Genre: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion Publisher: Yale University Press Release Date: 2024 Pages: 228 Source: Personal Collection  Synopsis: The complete poems of the priestess Enheduana, the world’s first known author, newly translated from the original Sumerian.      Enheduana was a high priestess and royal princess who lived in Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, about 2300 BCE. Not only does Enheduana have the distinction of being the first author whose name we know, but the poems attributed to her are hymns of great power. They are a rare flash of the female voice in the often male-dominated ancient world, treating themes that are as relevant today as they were four thousand years ago: exile, social disruption, the power of storytelling, gender-bending identities, the devastation of war, and the terrifying forces of nature.       This book is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) by Lucinda Riley: A Book Review

The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters #1) Author: Lucinda Riley Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance Publisher: Atria Release Date: 2015 Pages: 463 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, “Atlantis”—a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva—having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings. Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to ...
1 comment
Read more