The Reluctant Empress

Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known to her family as Sisi, belongs to a famous love story of European royalty - in 1853 the Emperor Franz Josef, the most eligible bachelor in Europe, fell in love with her at first sight when she was fifteen; they were married the next year. On the surface, it was a fairytale marriage, all the more poignant, with hindsight, because her death signalled the twilight years of the Habsburg Empire.

At the time of its first publication in 1988, Brigitte Hamann's bi...