Memoir; Writing your Life Story: Memoirs of Titanic and Dolls

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Josephine's Cousin, Sultana, by Prince Michael of Greece (1983).

On Sultana by Prince Michael of Greece (1983), a book used in my dissertation and in The Subversion of Romance in the Novels of Barbara Pym:


Aimée du Buc de Rivéry was the daughter of wealthy plantation owners on the island of Martinique, and cousin to Josephine Bonaparte (well, she wasn't Bonaparte back then). Aimée was sent to convent school in France, but things were get a bit hot in France and she was shipped back home - but the ship was supposedly attacked by Barbary Pirates. Was she sold off to the Ottoman empire and into the Sultan's harem? Was Aimée Nakşidil Sultan, the mother of Mahmud II?

We'll never know, but the legend sure does provide plenty of fodder for the adventurous novelist.

The good: The book is written in the first person, with Aimée at the end of her life reflecting back on her memoirs/diary. Despite my dislike of the first person narrative, it worked very well in the first half of the book with events centered around the intrigues and treachery in the Seraglio. Plenty of dirty dealings, poisonings and knives in the back. (amazon.com)

Josephine, a Most Imperial Excellent Woman

Her name was originally Rose, and she loved gardening, horticulture, and birds.  She also loved jewelry and collecting art.   Wealth and royal status notwithstanding, she could have been me, or a Pym heroine, or any of us.  Here is further reading from Heather Webb, author of Becoming Josephine:

Non-Fiction:

Napoleon & Josephine: An Improbable Marriage by Evangeline Bruce
The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon’s Josephine by Andrea Stuart
Mistress of Empires: The Extraordinary Life of Josephine Bonaparte by Kate Williams
Josephine: Napoleon’s Incomparable Empress by Eleanor P. Delorme
At the Court of Napoleon: Memoirs of the Duchesse d’Abrantes by Laure & Junot Abrantes and Oliver Bernier
Lettres de Napoléon à Joséphine by Napoléon Bonaparte

 Fiction:

The Josephine B. Trilogy by Sandra Gulland
The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon’s Bird of Paradise by Carolly Erickson
The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon’s Court by Michelle Moran

- See more at: http://www.heatherwebbauthor.com/becoming-josephine-further-reading/#sthash.h0BsWXDT.dpuf

Memoir; Writing your Life Story: From One of My Honor Societies

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The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Before there was The Hunger Games, V for Vendetta, Little Brother, and the whole host of YA and adult dystopic novels, there was Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.  This year marks the 53d anniversary of Aiken's novel of an alternative England run by Stuart kings. There will be more posts about Aiken and TWWC in future posts.  It is interesting to me that both Aiken and Pym were published by Jonathan Cape at one point, and that the influence of Jane Eyre is prevalent throughout Aiken's book.  TWWC eventually became a series of some 12 books, and while we are being serendipitous, not that Pym wrote 12 novels!

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