Author: Michael Kleeberg
Year: 2001
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Genres/categories:
Historical fiction
Cultures: Italy, France
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ISBNs:
9781590512562
1590512561 |
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A modern classic where history, philosophy, and eroticism collide in the grand tradition of the 18th-century novel.
The son of an impoverished Westphalian aristocrat, Theodor von Neuhoff is both seductive and opportunistic. Sent to Versailles to be a page to Princess Palatine, he distinguishes himself as a brilliant and fluent conversationalist with a taste for the ladies and for political intrigue. His missions take him to Holland, Mecklenburg, Venice, and Spain, where he discovers his true vocation as a double agent. Convinced that politics is only a game, in 1736 he has himself proclaimed king by the Corsicans rebelling against Genovese hegemony. As Theodor the First, he plans to transform "his island" into a prosperous kingdom. Yet, he gravely overestimates his own abilities as a monarch and goes down in history as the man who was king for a summer, dying a pauper in London.
In The King of Corsica, Michael Kleeberg-an accomplished prose stylist-draws the portrait of a historical figure caught between the excesses of the Baroque age and the Enlightenment, a master of illusion whose preoccupations are all too familiar to modern readers: money, love, and fame.
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