Empress Elisabeth of Austria

1837–1898

Empress Elisabeth of Austria, widely known as Sisi, was the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Celebrated for her beauty and unconventional habits, she resisted court ceremony, travelled extensively, sympathised with Hungary and was assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Geneva in 1898.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria also held the offices or ranks of duchess, Empress Consort of Austria, Queen Consort of Hungary, and Queen Consort of Bohemia. Empress Elisabeth of Austria belonged to the House of Wittelsbach and operated within Austrian Empire; Kingdom of Bavaria; Cisleithania. Empress Elisabeth of Austria was born in Munich and died in Geneva.

Gary Jennings’ Spangle: The Center Ring takes its travelling circus into the Habsburg lands and the court of Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth, using the imperial couple as part of a Europe being remade by nationalism and war. Gigi Griffis’ The Empress moves Elisabeth to the centre of the story: the fifteen-year-old Sisi accompanies her sister Helene to Bad Ischl, only for Franz Joseph to choose Elisabeth as his bride, turning a planned dynastic match into the beginning of her difficult life at the Viennese court.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1 series)

Spangle in Order

by Gary Jennings 3 books 4.7(63)

Spangle follows Florian’s Flourishing Florilegium of Wonders from the devastated American South at the end of the Civil War to the courts, capitals and battlefields of Europe. Former Confederate colonel Zachary Edge and veteran Obie Yount join a struggling travelling circus whose performers become a surrogate family. As…