SISSI:THE TRAGIC EMPRESS

Elisabeth of Austria is known as Sissi - the beautiful but tragic Empress. Sissi was just 16 1/4 when the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria chose her as his bride but what should have been a fairy-tale romance soon soured. Sissi, an independent-minded, free spirit disliked the Viennese court with its strict etiquette and rigid rules. Nor did she like her mother-in-law, or any of the palace staff. She felt suffocated in her gilded cage and quickly learned the knack of becoming suddenly indisposed as a way of avoiding her Imperial duties and her husband. Instead in taking care of her slim figure and her beautiful long hair her time was spent writing poetry and riding horses. But none of this brought her peace - she felt great melancholy and sought to escape by travelling incessantly from one end of Europe to the other until in 1898, on one of these trips, she was assassinated. Her popularity among the Austrian people, who were seldom favored with a glimpse of her, was limited. But later generations have been fascinated by this beautiful, unruly Empress. Her fame and the memory of her, which are revived in this richly illustrated biography, were kept alive not least by the Sissi films, with Romy Schneider in the starring role.