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

Description

Mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters - Antonia Fraser brilliantly explores the relationships which existed between The Sun King and the women in his life. This includes not only Louis XIV's mistresses, principally Louise de La Valliere, Athenais de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon, but also the wider story of his relationships with women in general, including his mother Anne of Austria, his two sisters-in-law who were Duchesses d'Orleans in succession, Henriette-Anne and Liselotte, his wayward illegitimate daughters, and lastly Adelaide, the beloved child-wife of his grandson.

Since 1969, Antonia Fraser has written many acclaimed historical works which have been international bestsellers, including Marie Antoinette, Mary Queen of Scots (James Tait Black Memorial Prize), Cromwell: Our Chief of Men, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 (St Louis Literary Award; CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger). Antonia Fraser was made CBE in 1999, and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. She is married to the playwright Harold Pinter and lives in London.

"A sparkling history which captures the giddy quality of the times" SUNDAY TELEGRAPH "Vividly capturing 17th-century Europe's most extravagant court.' -- Mark Comber THE DAILY EXPRESS 'Antonia Fraser's colourful history emphasises the conflict between private pleasure and religious dut in the life of Europe's grandest Catholic ruler.' -- Simon Shaw THE MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Fraser brilliantly dissects the intense rivalry of the ladies who indulged in 'commerce' with the king. -- Ian Pindar THE OBSERVER 'this enjoyable account. Fraser brings to life the female stars circling the Sun King in an account that successfully combines erudition with gossipy stories of the kind the Versailles courtiers loved so much.' THE SUNDAY TIMES