ManWhoKilledRasputin

While I was working on the biography of Felix Yusupov, I was also at work on a biography of Ludwig II. My great interest in Ludwig II began before I had ever heard of the Romanovs. Back in 1972, when I was eight, I remember going to the local library and finding there a book called “Enchanted Visions,” about fantastic palaces and castles in Europe. Ludwig’s various castles were prominently featured, and I began to read more about him and his buildings. Once I began writing seriously, I knew that I would one day turn to Ludwig.

I spent some five years working on “The Mad King,” a title that my US publisher, Carol, rather thrust on me against my objections. Unfortunately, this was not the only problem with the book. In 1996, I was living in London at the same time that the manuscript was going through the copyedit stage back in New York, and editorial decisions were made while I was overseas which I only discovered when the book was published. The biggest shock was finding that nearly 200 pages of material had been cut from the book for reasons of space without any consultation, including several chapters at the end in which I discussed the King's mysterious death. For the British edition, published by Aurum, I was able to add 4-5 pages of severely edited information on Ludwig's tragic end, but this was necessarily truncated and maintained nothing of the texture or detail originally intended.

Ludwig II remains the historical figure I find most fascinating and the one whom I hope one day to write about again. With that goal in mind, I have continued to do research since the book's publication, accessing new and valuable materials, including some 200 unpublished letters written by the King, which I hope to include in any new work. That new work will comesomeday, although I am still uncertain as to what format I should employ.

The Mad King: Ludwig II of Bavaria (1996)