 | |
| Author | Antonia Fraser |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Weidenfeld & Nicolson |
Publication date | 2001 |
| Publication place | U.K. |
| Pages | 496 |
Marie Antoinette: The Journey is a sympathetic 2001 biography ofarchduchessMarie Antoinette, theQueen of France (1774–1792) byAntonia Fraser. It is the basis for the 2006Sofia Coppola filmMarie Antoinette.
The book, which was relaunched to coincide with the release of the related film, has had considerable success. It has been translated into French and Italian, been awarded the Enid McLeod Literary Prize, received critical praise including being described "definitive" by British historian,Amanda Foreman, author of a bestselling biography ofGeorgiana, duchess of Devonshire. It is considered, by some modern historians, as the most thorough and balanced biography of the queen,[citation needed] though it naturally builds upon earlier biographies, first-hand accounts, and even the infamouslibelles that destroyed the queen's reputation.
Beginning withMarie Antoinette's mother, EmpressMaria Theresa, the book chronicles the life ofMarie Antoinette and how she, though the youngest of her mother's daughters, was selected to marry the future king of France.
Fraser depicts a youngdauphine, and eventual queen, unfairly maligned due to decades of anti-Austrian sentiment andxenophobia who was never comfortable in her role as influencer and ambassadress to Austria in a French court in which she was treated with derision and hostility.
It was described byThe Guardian as an "excellent biography".[1]
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