As we finalize details and voyage outward to our Spring Break destinations, one thing we never without without is a great book – or two, and what could be better than a captivating work of history that reads like a fiction. Our friend and author Susan Nagel’s captivating voice and enthralling subject-matter have sent two of her books straight to the top of our reading list: Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin and Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette’s Daughter. In the former, the lively and sharp-witted Scottish heiress Mary Nisbet (1778–1855) shone as the wife of Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and Ambassador Extraordinaire to the Ottoman Empire. In the earliest years of marriage, Mary was her husband’s staunchest ally and participant in his diplomatic work, but following Elgin’s incarceration under Napoleon and after the tragic loss of their only son as an infant, Mary’s feelings for Elgin began to cool. She resisted his demand for another heir, and their relationship collapsed when Elgin discovered Mary’s affair with his best friend. The glamorous couple’s marriage ended in scandal and a humiliating public divorce. In Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror, after the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, their young daughter, Marie-Thérèse, remained imprisoned. Released on her seventeenth birthday, she faced an uncertain future. Rumor spread that the traumatized princess had switched places with an illegitimate half sister, to live out her days as the mysterious “Dark Countess.” Now, two hundred years later, Susan Nagel finally solves this mystery, creating a brilliant new biography of a remarkable woman who both defined and shaped an era.
Susan Nagel is the author of a critically acclaimed book on the novels of Jean Giraudoux. She has written for the stage, the screen, scholarly journals, the Gannett newspaper chain, and Town & Country. A professor in the humanities department of Marymount Manhattan College, she lives in New York City.
