The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, Carolly Erickson
The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, Carolly Erickson
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The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette
A Novel

Author: Carolly Erickson

Narrator: Maggi-Meg Reed

Abridged: 5 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/01/2005


Synopsis

For more than two centuries Marie Antoinette has been vilified as the heartless, frivolous queen who spent lavishly while her people starved. Now, in the tradition of The Birth of Venus and The Other Boleyn Girl, this moving novel tells her side of the story.

Imagine that, on the night before she is to die under the blade of the guillotine, Marie Antoinette leaves behind in her prison cell a diary telling the story of her life—from her privileged childhood as Austrian Archduchess to her years as glamorous mistress of Versailles to the heartbreak of imprisonment and humiliation during the French Revolution. Carolly Erickson takes us deep into the psyche of France's doomed queen: her love affair with handsome Swedish diplomat Count Axel Fersen, who risked his life to save her on the terrifying night the Parisian mob broke into her palace bedroom intent on murdering her and her family; her harrowing flight from France in disguise, her recapture and the grim months of harsh captivity; her agony when her beloved husband was guillotined and her beloved son was torn from her arms, never to be seen again.

Erickson brilliantly captures the queen's voice, her hopes, her dreads, her suffering. We follow, mesmerized, as she reveals every detail of her remarkable, eventful life, from her teenage years when she began keeping a diary to her final days when she awaited her own bloody appointment with the guillotine.

About Carolly Erickson

Distinguished historian Carolly Erickson is the author of Rival to the Queen, The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots, The First Elizabeth, The Hidden Life of Josephine, The Last Wife of Henry VIII, and many other prize-winning works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Tsarina’s Daughter won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Fiction. She lives in Hawaii.

About Maggi-Meg Reed

Maggi-Meg Reed is the narrator of numerous popular audiobooks including Alex Kava's One False Move, Sebastien Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement, and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.  Reed is a multiple Audie nominee, Earphones winner, and AudioFile Featured Narrator.   In 2008, she was named the Best Voice in Fiction & Classics by AudioFile magazine.  Her voice can also be heard on television and radio commercials across the country, and AudioFile Magazine has called her narration"fresh, intelligent, and attentive".  She lives in Brooklyn, NY.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lois

This book was pretty good. I have not read much about Marie Antoinette, though I did see the movie the recent movie and liked it. This book is told from Marie's pov, which is nice. She is kind of naive, silly, but innocent. Her husband Louis is portrayed as mentally deficient-not in terms of learning......more

Goodreads review by Candi

This was a decent historical fiction novel written in a diary format, which provides a first person voice to the life of Marie Antoinette. As the author notes at the conclusion of the book, this is “a work of fiction, not fact – a historical entertainment, not an attempt at historical reconstruction......more


Quotes

“The old ‘let them eat cake' myth has once and forever been exploded, yet the author resists the temptation to sentimentalize or simplify the maddeningly complex character of Marie Antoinette.” —Robin Maxwell, author of The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn


Awards

  • Audie Award Finalist