My review of Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King, by Antonia Fraser

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

by Antonia Fraser 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

While Antonia Fraser is perhaps my all-time favourite biographer, certain of her subjects have not interested me greatly. This, in my opinion, is one of her best for its sheer literary quality.

I could happily soak up Lady Fraser's eloquence on any old thing. So, this not being my favourite or most familiar royal court or period, I relished the opportunity to read her elaboration on it, to gain insight into an epoch I have previously found drier and more awkward to penetrate than others.

I pride myself as an aficionado on other times and reigns while humbly conceding my novice status on this. Hence my need to be gently nurtured into it by fine, readable writing.

Fraser's considerate genealogical charts were also of immeasurable assistance as I flipped back and forth between text and reference to keep up with the many similar yet unfamiliar names. 

This work stylistically transcends many of her others; she has matured so beautifully as a writer. Not since her 1969 Mary, Queen of Scots have I been so enraptured by her words, sentences and human insight - only this way have I learnt much history. It is ultimately, for this reader, the way the topic at hand is presented rather than the topic itself.

I spent weeks on this this. Can only compare it with immersing myself in the most splendidly sumptuous candlelit aromatic bath I've ever had. I re-emerged suitably enlightened, pampered and eternally grateful.

Not the most groundbreaking educational journey of my life, but remedial therapy of the highest order and an invaluable preliminary glimpse into what I still find a less fascinating world than medieval and Tudor England.