Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

Originally published in 1932 and for decades since one of Stefan Zweig€s most popular biographies, this €œportrait of an average woman,€ betrothed at fourteen, crowned queen at nineteen, and beheaded at thirty-seven, aimed €œnot to deify, but to humanize.€ Supplementing library and archival research with psychological insight, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman is a vivid narrative of France€s most famous queen, her relations with her mother Empress Maria Theresa, her husband Louis XVI, and her lover Swedish Count von Fersen, set against the backdrop of the French and Austrian courts of the ancien r©gime, the French Revolution and the Terror.


€œ... the biography to end all biographies on Marie Antoinette ... [Zweig's book] possesses all the qualities of the excellent biography €" directness, frankness, full exposition, picturesqueness, characterization, color and delectable readableness.€ €" The New York Times

€œPowerful, magnificent, poignant€¦€ €" The New Republic

€œA stupendous and superb piece of work.€ €" Chicago Daily Tribune