Josephine Bonaparte: Life of the Empress

Josephine Bonaparte

This evocative biography tells the extraordinary story of Josephine Bonaparte. One of the most potent icons of female sexuality, Josephine has largely been reduced to an empty cipher, the butt of one of the oldest jokes around.
The life of Josephine Bonaparte has been portrayed almost entirely in connection with Napoleon, but that relationship was only a tiny fraction of the life she led as a Caribbean woman in the salons of 18th-century Paris. Sharing with her subject a Caribbean background, Andrea Stuart offers an insight into the world which Josephine Bonaparte left as a plump schoolgirl for Paris and marriage to her cousin Viscount Alexandre Beauharnais.
Expecting an exotic Creole bride, Beauharnais set about a radical transformation and the dowdy teenager soon became a sophisticated sensual beauty, the darling of the pre-revolutionary salons. As the revolution reached its endgame, Josephine Bonaparte, now widowed with two small children, met her Emperor and the rest, as they say, is history.
Rose of Martinique: A Life of Josephine by Andrea Stuart
ISBN: 0333739337

Josephine Bonaparte: Many Lives Secret Sorrows

Young Josephine Bonaparte shines at the center of a new, sweeping, romantic work of historical fiction by Sandra Gulland: detailed and exhaustively researched, compelling and powerful.
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine Bonaparte. is the first in a trilogy of fictional novels tracing the actual rise of a young European noblewoman who would one day stand next to Napoleon. From the heartbreak of lost loves to the horror of revolution to the hope of new days, it's an intimate epic any romance lover will love.
Many Lives Secret Sorrows Of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland
ISBN: 0684856069

Josephine Bonaparte: A Life of the Empress

In 1804, when Josephine Bonaparte knelt before her husband, Napoleon, to receive the imperial diadem, few in the vast crowd of onlookers were aware of the dark secrets hidden behind the imperial façade.
To her subjects, Josephine Bonaparte appeared to vet hew most favored woman in France: alluring, wealthy, and with the devoted love of a remarkable husband who was the conqueror of Europe. In actuality, the life of Josephine Bonaparte was far darker, for her celebrated allure was fading, her wealth was compromised by massive debt, and her marriage was corroded by infidelity and abuse.
The life of Josephine Bonaparte was as turbulent as the age - an era of revolution and social upheaval, of the guillotine, and of frenzied hedonism. With telling psychological depth and compelling literary grace, Carolly Erickson brings the complex, charming, ever-resilient Josephine Bonaparte to life in this memorable portrait. One that carries the reader along every twist and turn of the empress's often thorny path, from the sensual richness of her childhood in the tropics to her final lonely days at Malmaison.
Josephine: A Life of the Empress by Carolly Erickson
ISBN: 0312263465

Catherine De Medici

Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at fourteen to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots and like many of her children he died young). When her second son became king she was the power behind the throne. She nursed dynastic ambitions, but was continually drawn into political and religious intrigues between catholics and protestants that plagued France for much of the later part of her life. It had always been said that she was implicated in the notorious Saint Barthlomew's Day Massacre, together with the king and her third son who succeeded to the throne in 1574, but was murdered. Her political influence waned, but she survived long enough to ensure the succession of her son-in-law who had married her daughter Margaret.
Catherine De Medici: A Biography by Leonie Frieda
ISBN: 0753820390