Princess as Biographer

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18632, 16 February 1935, Page 13

Princess as Biographer

“TTIE Empress Frederick is one of the most tragic figures of modern history. Always misunderstood, always slami'emd. because she refused to sacrifice any of her high ideals, none gave her credit for her really great qualities, nor for the Jove which to her dying day she bore the (.'•ermany that had proved so ungrateful towards her and her husband,” writes Princess Catherine Radziwill, in her biography of “The Empress Frederick,’.' “No one remembered,” adds tin* Princess, “that from the day she crossed the frontier of her new country she became in some things just as proud of it as sin* was proud of her own beautiful, and great one. No matter wlmt site did, she remained for the (iertnan people the Englishwoman—die Englanderin. ’’

It is now a matter, of common knowledge that the Empress Frederick lived a very unhappy life* and that, her son, the ex-Kaiser, treated her with very scant filial consideration. All this is documented and proved in this intimate biography, for the Koval author litis hud access to papers which no other writer would be likely to see. She tells a poignant si orv of petty persecution, but I lie Princess also records the ill-advised actions of the Empress —and they wore often very unwise and finis a well-balanced life is provided. Quite apart from the personal story, the pit cure it gives of Europe during the las! quarter of the nineteenth century is of great political interest.

There are sonic in'lcrcsling revelations of the notions of Queen Victoria and King Edward Vi I in this remark able book of a tragic liguro in recent history.