If you read Hannah Pakula’s fantastic book on Empress Frederick of Prussia (Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter), Bismarck is the bad guy. That’s the first perspective I got on Bismarck, and the image stuck. But when I decided to write about Hilda of Baden, I had to figure out who this guy really was and what people who weren’t Vicky thought about him.

I picked up a digital copy of this book via BookBub for $0.99, and was totally stoked. But after reading it, I’m still not sure I have a good idea who this man was. He’s still a cipher to me. There are lots of things about him that I understand: he claimed to have inner voices always squabbling inside him, he had crazy-bad nerves, he always felt out of place, and he liked romantic novels (particularly those of Sir Walter Scott). Yup, me too.

But he was also an anti-intellectual, which I don’t identify with. I’m not an intellectual, but I admire people who are and kind of wish I could be one. I don’t see anything wrong with looking for answers in books. And I definitely don’t agree with his intense dislike and fear of clever women.

Bismarck believed he was doing God’s work, and as a result, had the leeway to totally ignore anyone who opposed him. But where did he get the confidence to trust that he knew what that work was? And why didn’t he get the fact that using cutthroat tactics to achieve his (God’s) goals puts him in a moral quandary? Or, if he did get it, how did he ignore his conscience for so long? This dude had some serious moral relativism going on, and that’s why I can’t figure him out.

In any case, this book is a fast read but a little dry. By necessity, there are a lot of politics and shifting alliances. Not as interesting to me as interpersonal relationships, but that’s what you get with Bismarck. I definitely need to find more sources about him so I can dig a little deeper.

When Prussia annexed Hanover in 1866, Bismarck had a problem on his hands. King George of Hanover refused to give up his rights to the crown, his property, and his money. Like the world’s ugliest divorce, separating a royal family from its kingdom involves all kinds of legal maneuvers to figure out what’s personal property, what’s state property, and how and when to transfer money and property to its rightful owner.

This book goes through the long struggle Bismarck faced to continually subdue the Hanoverian royal family and crush their hopes of regaining their kingdom. That sounds exciting, but the book is a little dry. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes financial wrangling that’s not super-fun to read about. I’m glad I read it because it’s useful background information, but it’s not exactly a page-turner.

This book will have you glued to the sofa for hours. There’s so much to digest, and it’s beautifully put together. Normal human beings like me will never get to see these amazing jewels up close, so this book is the best I’m gonna do. For now, it’s enough.

My only caveat? Don’t always trust what you read. Nadelhoffer is a jewelry expert, but he’s not a royal history expert. Believe him when he’s talking about stone weight or quality, but verify what he says about the history of people who owned these lovely pieces. I found several errors in the piece on the Yusupov black pearl necklace, for example.

Good lord, I wish I’d bought this sooner. I picked up a used copy on Amazon for about $20, and it was worth every penny. You get some amazing photos thanks to Papi’s affiliation with Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The text is extremely readable and enjoyable. You’ll get lots of coverage of jewel aficionados like Princess Paley, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (the Elder), Ella, Alix, and Minnie. There’s not much on the lesser-known family members like, say, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavrikievna or Grand Duchess Alexandra Josifovna. I tore through most of the text in a single sitting the day this puppy came in the mail.

As always, though, I wish I knew where some tidbits were sourced from. I bought the book because I could see through the Google Books preview that Maria Feodorovna had arranged a party at which Zinaida Yusupov was supposed to meet (and presumably fall in love with) Sandro Battenberg. I had to know more, which is why I bought the book. But that tidbit doesn’t have a footnote, so I don’t know where it came from and can’t investigate further. Still. You can’t be mad at a book with such beautiful pictures.

Confession time: I’ve had a copy of this on my shelf since Borders was a thing. Yes, it's been that long since I've known I should read this. If you're in the same boat, I'm here to reassure you. It's worth the time.

Why do I mention time? Because this is a long book. It’s not something you breeze through in a weekend. You need to take your time with it. It’s roughly chronological, covering the cultural impact of major events beginning with the building of St. Petersburg, like the Decembrist revolt, the literary flowering of the mid 19^th-century, and the Russian Revolution.

Don’t expect a straight history, though. This book also explores larger topics like “the Russian soul” and the culture of peasants as opposed to the European-influenced culture of aristocrats. The historical events it covers are woven into the larger discussion. It’s heady stuff, but its written in a very accessible way. I never felt out of my depth.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the later chapters, about revolutionary-era writers and their transition into Soviet censorship. Anna Akhmatova features prominently, but I was just as intrigued and impressed by the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva.

And if you can get through this book without wanting to read Gogol, you’re a stronger person than I.

Okay, so get this. Obolensky grew up in tsarist Russia, with every luxury available to the son of wealthy noble family. He joined an elite cavalry regiment, married a tsar’s (illegitimate) daughter, and went off to fight for fame and glory in World War I. But then the dream turned into a nightmare, and he fled to the Crimea with many of the Romanovs hoping to avoid capture by the Bolsheviks. He and his wife escaped to London, and after their divorce, Obolensky lived with Prince Felix Yusupov.

Later, Obolensky went to Australia and then America, where he married heiress Alice Astor. He worked for Alice’s brother, Vincent Astor, at their St. Regis Hotel in New York. Because this story doesn’t have enough drama, he also hooked up with Bill Donovan, head of the OSS during World War II, and became a paratrooper at age 53, dropped into Europe twice during World War II.

I won’t tell you more and spoil the story, but his memoir is fascinating. It’s well-written and you can tell how charming Obolensky must have been in person. Also, I learned something interesting about Russian pronunciation – his name is pronounced “Ah-bolensky” instead of  “Oh-bolensky.” That’s apparently how the upper class pronounced the first syllable. You’re welcome.

Get the full review in this post!

Catherine Bailey came to Belvoir Castle, home of the Dukes of Rutland, to research a book about World War I. But when she found an unexplained and unexpected gap in their records for a key period in the war, that book idea was shot to hell. That gap, though, was only one of three precisely curated gaps that left virtual black holes in the Rutland family records. Weird, right? Bailey thought so, too. So she started digging. This book is the story of her attempt to find the missing records and piece together the secrets the 9th duke didn't want anyone to find out. Nifty!

I knew very little about Mayerling before reading this book. I knew the bare bones of the accepted story of what happened – that in 1899, Austria’s 30-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf shot his teenage mistress then shot himself. But I also knew there were rumors of other explanations – that Rudolf had been murdered, and that Mary Vetsera had been killed after Rudolf to make it look like a murder suicide.

King and Wilson bring a lot to the table in terms of their conspiracy theory analysis. They cover a wide range of theories and possibilities, from a jealous husband who fired from outside the hunting lodge to a case of accidental death during a drunken party to the traditional murder/suicide pact. Without spoiling anything for you, I’ll just quote their description of what this tale includes: “mental instability, blackmail, venereal disease, rumors of incest, and political treason” (viii). If that doesn’t get you interested, check your pulse – you’re dead inside.

One thing I didn’t know before reading this: Vienna had Europe’s highest suicide rate. King and Wilson quote Walburga Paget, who wrote, “At the slightest difficulty these people meet, they at once resort to suicide. There must be something in the air of Vienna that makes people do this” (95). Paget was warned to avoid early morning rides in the Prater because officials needed time to take down the previous night’s suicides by hanging. This culture of suicide would have affected an emotional, sensitive man like Rudolf. It’s not evidence, per se, but it’s something I didn’t know about imperial Vienna.

This book is chock-full of facts, tidbits, anecdotes, and hard evidence. I couldn’t put it down and failed to cook dinner the night I started it. I just couldn’t be bothered because I had to know how much Prince Philip of Coburg knew about Rudolf’s last hours. I highly recommend you read this book, but clear your schedule so you don’t piss off anyone expecting you to do anything else that day.

2021 UPDATE

After reading a few more books on Mayerling, I think there’s a better book to start with. Now, I recommend Fritz Judtmann’s Mayerling: The Facts Behind the Legend. I still recommend King and Wilson as a follow-up because it will get you updated on what happened after Judtmann published his book. But the Judtmann book is more comprehensive, more linear, and a little more transparent about where quotes and information come from. King/Wilson’s book includes many partial quotes which are, as always, footnoted – but you’re not always going to get a thorough explanation of where that quote came from (i.e., different versions of the Vetsera memorandum), who said it, and what their biases are. Judtmann does provide that, which makes it a better book to start with.