Izabela the Valiant

EARLY PRAISE FOR IZABELA THE VALIANT:

‘Reading Adam Zamoyski’s authoritative and scintillating life of his great-great-great-great-grandmother, you enter the richly colourful…world of Poland in the 18th and 19th centuries… Zamoyski tells the story of a zestful, visionary, patriotic wife and mother whose chief mission was to supervise the enlightened, liberal education of her children and, by setting that example, show Polish society how to regenerate the nation…[a] highly evocative and warm-hearted portrait’

The Times

‘A brilliant portrait of an extraordinary woman and a history of a wider Europe from Russia and Poland to France and Britain, gripping and fun, a delight from the very first page, filled with enlightened culture, eccentric idiosyncratic characters, wild love-affairs, imperial politics and the charm of 18thC Europe, written beautifully and laced with delicious details of art, sex, power, debauchery and luxury. Izabela Czartoryska was one of the great women of 18th century, magnate, collector, mother, lover and European potentate and luminary. Highly recommended!’

Simon Sebag-Montefiore

‘A fascinating, often moving, family history, which also illuminates the culture, tragedy and heroism of 19th-century Poland’

David Reynolds, author of Mirrors of Greatness

Adam Zamoyski is a British historian of Polish origin. He is the author of the bestselling 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow and its sequel Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, as well as several other acclaimed works on key figures and aspects of European history. His books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Persian as well as most European languages. His comprehensive history of Poland, The Polish Way, not only featured in the bestseller lists for several weeks when it came out in 1987, but has never been out of print since. Zamoyski has also contributed to all the major British papers and periodicals, as well as lecturing widely in England, Europe and the United States. He lives in London and Poland.