Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette » (First Edition)

Carolly Erickson is a distinguished biographer and author of THE FIRST ELIZABETH, HER LITTLE MAJESTY, and ALEXANDRA, among many other prize-winning nonfiction books. She is currently at work on the forthcoming novel, THE LAST WIFE OF HENRY VIII. She lives in Hawaii.

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 the reader 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; her fears on the terrifying night the Parisian mob broke into her palace bedroom intent on murdering her and her family; her harrowing attempted flight from France in disguise; her recapture and the grim months of harsh captivity; her agony when her beloved husband was guillotined and her young son was torn from her arms, never to be seen again.

Erickson brilliantly captures the queen's voice, her hopes, her dreads, and 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.

The New York Times - Judith Warner

She presents, overall, a very human and multi-textured portrait of a queen who all too often has been reduced to a historical one-liner. Her Marie Antoinette is a dutiful daughter, a devoted mother, a committed wife and a passionate romantic. She even has a social conscience. This may be pure fiction, but it hardly matters. As the chronicle of one woman's life and loves, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette rings true.