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Versailles: A Biography of a Palace | 
 enlarge | Author: Tony Spawforth
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.97
You Save: $11.98 (40%)
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 46967
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0312357850
Dewey Decimal Number: 944.3663
EAN: 9780312357856
ASIN: 0312357850
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
The behind-the-scenes story of the world’s most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace’s legacy, from French history through today
The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France’s old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. Versailles sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today. Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King’s construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a “perpetual house party” of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France’s national identity since 1789. Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration.
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| Customer Reviews:
 I've Been Waiting For This Book... January 5, 2009
This is not a "coffee table" picturebook of Versailles. There are plenty of those to be had. What's been missing from the literature on this subject has been a book that explains the workings of the palace, its social and political context and the routines and rhythms of day-to-day life in what was, essentially, an enormous gilded cage for the French nobility. This book begins to fills that niche. My only complaint would be that the author could have included a few more architectural drawings to illustrate the evolution of the palace and the changing arrangement of rooms over the reigns of the three kings of France who lived in Versailles. These developments are discussed in interesting detail, but the effect is diminished without a visual to assist the reader. Overall, a very good and interesting read.
 Wonderful Surprise! December 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Everything you ever wanted to know about living in this palace and then some. The book covers the hygeine or lack of it; the expenses and stressors of placing yourself in the Kings' company; the political importance of the location of assigned apartments--the scandals, what more can be squeezed into this space by a review? Buy this book--I had a hard time putting it down.
Excellent Biography November 18, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth is an architectural history quite different from most of the dull, dry ones. This book is filled with true stories of incidents within Versailles told by its inhabitants, from servants to kings and queens. The history of place is derived not only from facts and descriptions but also from writings of people who actually lived there or helped work on the palace and gardens. This is really interesting, sort of like eves-dropping on a wicked plot or an unlawful tryst, or the collapse of a kingdom, for which the palace itself plays a huge part as the culprit. The book is fun to read, captivating, and will fill your mind with images of an unbelievably decadent and lavish lifestyle, long-gone forever. You'll find this an interesting read.
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