Marie Antoinette in Fiction
Explore the best Marie Antoinette fiction books—dive into captivating novels and historical tales about the iconic queen. Discover royal intrigue, drama, and romance in these top picks.
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Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette
by Sena Jeter Naslund
Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas—eager to be a good wife and strong queen—she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror." With penetrating insight and with wondrous narrative skill, Sena Jeter Naslund offers an intimate, fresh, heartbreaking, and dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond popular myth—and she makes a bygone time of tumultuous change as real to us as the one we are living in now.
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The Bad Queen
by Carolyn Meyer
Drowning her unhappiness in luxurious parties and scandalous fashions when she falls short of impossible court standards and expectations, Marie-Antoinette incites the wrath of her impoverished French subjects and her disapproving mother. By the award-winning author of Doomed Queen Anne.
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Farewell, My Queen
by Chantal Thomas
Agathe-Sidonie Laborde, Marie Antoinette's reader, recounts her memories of living at Versailles during the final days of the French revolution.
