Josephine: A Life of the Empress [Paperback]

Carolly Erickson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 2000

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, she 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, Josephine's life 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.

Josephine's life story 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 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When she married Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796, Rose de Beauharnais was a 32-year-old widow who had narrowly escaped the French Revolution's guillotine. She was six years older than he, notorious for her lovers, and unlikely to give him children, but possessed of the social connections and skills the ambitious young general thought would help him rise in the revolutionary army. He gave "his living reverie, his dream of perfect passion" a new name, Josephine--perhaps hoping it would blot out her unsavory past. Instead, she continued to be promiscuous as well as extravagant, and the marriage soured as Napoleon ascended to first consul and then emperor of the French. Yet he divorced her only in 1810, when political events made it clear he must have an heir. This highly colored biography practically wallows in Josephine's lurid personal life, colored in by luscious descriptions of the period's clothes, food, and amusements. The author, whose many previous books mostly deal with English royalty, does not burden readers with excessive doses of French history; the focus is always on Josephine, whose psychology is discussed at length. Erickson succeeds in making her subject an attractive figure, if hardly an exemplar of moral rectitude. Her book should appeal to those who like their historical biographies titillating and not too taxing. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Marie-Josephe-Rose de Tascher, better known as the Empress Josephine, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, has not been treated kindly by most historians. Erickson presents a balanced account of the Martinique-born girl who gained notoriety for her amorous and financial intrigues in the France of the revolutionary era prior to her marriage to the rising young Corsican general. Erickson is the author of several previous books on European history, including biographies of Catherine the Great (Great Catherine, LJ 6/1/94) and Queen Victoria (Her Little Majesty, LJ 1/97). Despite Ericksons evenhanded treatment of her subject, the Josephine who emerges here remains a vain, shallow schemer. The book is clear and easy to read but offers no new information or insight. Furthermore, Ericksons occasional errors of fact cause one to question her grounding in the material. For example, she states that 300,000 people were executed during the Reign of Terror, whereas the actual figure was somewhere closer to 25,000. Not recommended.Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ.,
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (August 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312263465
• ISBN-13: 978-0312263461
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,312,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carolly Erickson is the bestselling author of many distinguished works of nonfiction and a series of historical entertainments, blending fact and invention. She lives in Hawaii.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I've Read Better, July 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Josephine: A Life of the Empress (Hardcover)

On the whole, I found this biography to be rich with detail and historical accuracies. It was an entertaining read and I recommend it to anyone who likes to read history. However, I found that Erickson was a little too biased in her position on the Empress; I felt as though I were reading a fluffed-up account of her life, to the point where the reader has no choice but to see her as an angel in a den of thieves--and she was hardly an angel. Erickson asserts that she knows the Empress well enough to make assumptions as to how she felt, or what she was thinking. It is also obvious that the author has a bias against Napoleon and her relationship with him. If the reader had no previous knowledge of their relationship, he would be confused. Erickson says on the one-hand how miserable Josephine was over her marriage to him, yet is mad with jealousy within the next few pages. There is no real development of their relationship. The authors feelings for her subject come through a bit too stong for my taste.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Diary of a Rose, October 1, 2000

By 

Atheen M. Wilson "Atheen" (Mpls, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Josephine: A Life of the Empress (Hardcover)

By and large I prefer an unvarnished, streight forward history to an interpretive one, and Erickson's "Josephine, A Life of the Empress," is a little history with a lot of personal interpolation. I did however enjoy the book; it makes an interesting read, and pulls the reader along with the dash of a romance novel. Rose Tasher, the daughter of a failing suger plantation owner in Martinique, is pulled along by the forceful currents of her times, like a cork bobbing along in a stream. Her gift for self promotion and a flare for diplomacy carried her from a futureless life on the tropical island of her birth to a pampered if not terribly happy life as the Vicountess de Beauharnais, to that of independent courtisan, to wife of France's premire general Napoleon Boneparte, to Empress of France, and finally to honored icon of French nobility under the new Bourbon monarchy. She survived alive through the nightmarish years of the French Revolution, even escaping a death sentence after a long confinment in hellish circumstances during Robespierre's reign of terror. She did this through political connections she had cultivated earlier in her life. While her then estranged husband, Alexander, the Marquess de Beauharnais, who had been an active supporter of the revolution lost his head, essentially for his pedigree. From here on her talents for survival are tested to the limit by the shifting tides of political history. No matter what her position at any given time, Rose is able to make it safely to the winning side by virtue of having made influential friends willing to interceed for her during the turmoil and violence of each change in regime. Despite her relationship with Napoleon--at which time she assumes her new persona as Josephine--and her tenure as Empress, after his fall she is fortunate enough to be cultivated by the new monarchy as an icon of French nobility surviving the revolution. What is truely amazing, over and above her own survival of these times which spared no person and during which hardly a family in France had not lost several if not most members to the violence of each succeeding political change, is that she managed to keep her son and daughter alive and to promote their fortunes through her efforts. When one views the lady from the perspective of her times, one can hardly deny, even when one deducts for the creative license of the author, that Josephine Rose Tascher de Beauharnaise Boneparte was an amazing person.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Read - But Too Soft on The Empress, May 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Josephine: A Life of the Empress (Hardcover)

Carrolly Erickson is a talented researcher and author, and her new biography on Empress Josephine is another very good read. I have a problem, however, with Erickson's habit of falling a little too much in love with some of her less admirable subjects. Josephine, while an exceptional character study, does not deserve the relentless emphasis Erickson places on her few redeeming qualities. Josephine was, in fact, a shallow and self-indulgent liar, swindler, whore, and manipulator extraordinaire. Although Erickson acknowledges these traits, she plays them down by repeatedly referencing Josephine's ingenuousness, compassion, and victim qualities, none of which are visible without Erickson's careful coaching. Erickson displayed this same oh-come-now-she's-not-so-bad-if-you'll-only-try approach with Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"). The book ended, appropriately, with Josephine's funeral. But I wanted to know what happened to her two children, Napolean's new wife, and even the loathsome Bonapart relatives. These were not peripheral characters; they were integral components of Josephine's life and a quick wrap-up sketch of each would have made the ending much more satisfying. I'm glad I read this book and recommend it to other biography and history lovers. Even so it's difficult to resist a spectacular kind of repugnance towards Josephine, notwithstanding Erickson's unfortunate and obvious urging to the contrary.