This biography really delivered. We follow Sisi's life from when she was 15 and about to meet the Emperor of Austria to her death at age 60 when she was assassinated. While most of Sisi's letters have been burned with what little that remains being restricted from public review, we still get a pretty complete picture of a complex woman who wasn't exactly reluctant to take the throne but who was very unprepared for the role.

From the beginning, readers are introduced to a very sensitive woman. Having grown up in an unorthodox, aristocratic household, Sisi is unpretentious and quite philosophical, even at a young age. When the emperor becomes infatuated with her, her mother - the Duchess Ludovika - worries that the call to duty will be too much for her daughter. However, I suspect that if Sisi had met more compassionate people, she would have risen to the occasion. As it was, the Viennese court repelled her. Much how Marie Antoinette was taken from her relatively carefree upbringing and plunged into a strict and superficial court, the same happens to Sisi, but she rejects it outright. She despises the customs and the formality, the gossip and the banality of her role. Her mother-in-law is like the evolved Jane Fonda from that one movie. She never lets the couple be on their own, and she has a vice-like grip over her son, the emperor. From the beginning, Sisi is treated like an outsider, and she starts to pull away.

Hamann is very sympathetic towards her subject. She insists over and over that the Viennese court alienated Sisi, even when the empress showed obvious talents and intelligence. In her dealings with her husband and the Hungarians, she is an astute and dedicated statesman. Sisi was also gifted with languages when she applied herself, having learned both Greek and Hungarian in her lifetime (two notoriously difficult languages), and she led a very disciplined lifestyle (which was very unhealthy but more on that later). Hamann also reveals that Sisi, despite being an aristocrat and empress, actually didn't support the monarchy but was a republican instead. Clearly, Sisi was no dummy, but she was forced to take a superficial role, which she shunned, hence why she chose to flee the Viennese court at every opportunity.

It is this that causes Hamann to critique her subject. While Sisi is very much to be pitied, she is not a saint nor a fairytale princess. She's a human who makes mistakes. She essentially gives up her first two children to an almost criminal degree and never takes an interest in them while smothering her youngest. She avoids duty like the plague, allowing herself to wallow in self-pity, when a little activity would most likely have brought her out of herself. She wasted money like there was no tomorrow, and she suffered from pretty extreme anorexia nervosa. Eventually, she clawed back the power from her mother-in-law, but she rarely used it for good.

Some people will say Sisi is a "piece of work" and move on, but they would be ignoring that a young woman was put in an impossible situation (as they say, no one says 'no' to the emperor) and given virtually no support (or at least not the kind of support she needed) to thrive in her new position. The Empress Elisabeth was a fascinating person, and Hamann does a fantastic job drawing her out her many layers, chapter by chapter, decade by decade. The biography is never boring, and it feels very approachable. Highly recommend to anyone looking to learn more about this tragic monarch who was probably the most human of all of them. ( )

This was an absolutely stunning biography of perhaps the most iconic member of the House of Habsburg, Empress Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria. Plucked from Bavaria at the tender age of fifteen, Sissi took to the world stage as the wife of Emperor Franz Josef. She quickly became disillusioned with her new duties and married life at the center of one of the most illustrious dynasties in the world.

Sissi's relationship with her mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, was fraught with tension. The archduchess ruled the Hofburg with a will of iron that even her monarch son was reluctant to cross. Sissi's reaction was to pull away and forge a life of her own. Eventually, she left her relationship with her children and her husband behind in her search for her personal freedom.

This book is very fair in its treatment of Sissi, going to great lengths to provide us with intimate details of her triumphs and her failings. A great number of Sissi's poems are also included in the book, evidence of the world she created for herself in her mind. It's a fascinating story that leaves the reader spellbound and thinking about its subject long after you've finished the book.

Highly recommended! ( )

This was more about Sisi than I liked. The book barely focused on her husband or kids but I guess Sisi barely focused on those as well.
This was a bit slow and I gave a single star because this was written in the 80's but the author still refers to Black People as 'negroes' & 'blackamoors' outside of period quotes.
It's dated and gross. ( )

this is about one of the most famous women in the world, empress elizabeth of austria, who after living a wild free life at the age of 16, and deeply in love marries the young emperor of austria franz joseph unaware he is still tied to his mothers apron strings, and amid her mother in laws hostility, and her interference, even taking her children away at birth, and her husbands remoteness and his infidelities, serches for the meaning of her life, and becomes one of the the most famous. popular, sought after women of her time, until her asassation in 1888 ( )

this is a great read ( )