Louis 14 - Hardcover

Dunlop, Ian

3.58

72 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1856194531 ISBN 13: 9781856194532

Publisher: Random House UK, 1999

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Good, A very good, clean and sound copy in ochre/orange coloured cloth boards with gold gilt title on spine. Illustrated dust jacket has small crease at lower edge of spine but otherwise very good. Well illustrated in b/w. 6.3"x9.3"x1.8"; 2.3 lb; 320 pages.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Winner of the 1999 Enid MacLeod Award, Ian Dunlop's elegant biography of Louis XIV (1638-1715) brilliantly achieves the author's aim "to help my readers see [Louis] as his contemporaries saw him." Extensive quotes from diaries and memoirs (each assessed for their prejudices) bring to life the glittering French court in the heyday of divine-right monarchy. Handsome and athletic, autocratic but kind, devoted to his queen as well as his mistresses yet also a pious pillar of the Catholic Church, Louis seemed to his dazzled subjects to incarnate the power and glory of the French nation. He moved in a world where personal relations dominated political affairs, and royalty's private life was intensely public: "The great families of the French aristocracy were at their most natural when they were showing off," writes Dunlop, with a nice appreciation of this society's paradoxes. Louis's fondness for wars and passion for extravagant building projects like the palace of Versailles strained the French economy and sowed the seeds for the French Revolution. In his time, however, he was adored. Dunlop's engaging depiction of a generous, charismatic man makes it easy to understand why. --Wendy Smith

About the Author:

Ian Dunlop first saw Versailles when he was twelve years old and the impact it made upon him never diminished. Architecture became his passion, and Versilles became the subject of his first book. He helped Nancy Mitford research The Sun King, and his own books include Ch�teaux on the Loire, The Royal Palaces of France, and the highly-praised Marie Antoinette: a Portrait. He lives in England.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.