For this balanced and sympathetic biography, the author was given the complete freedom of the secret Archives of the Royal House of Wittelsbach.

"The Swan King" is the biography of one of the most enigmatic figures of the 19th century, described by Verlaine as 'the only true king of his century'. A man of wildly eccentric temperament and touched by a rare, imaginative genius, Ludwig II of Bavaria is remembered both for his patronage of Richard Wagner and for the fabulous palaces which he created as part of a dream-world to escape the responsibilities of state. In realization of his fantasies, he created a ferment of creativity among artists and craftsmen, while his neglect of Bavaria's political interests made powerful enemies among those critical of his self-indulgence and excesses. At the age of 40, declared insane in a plot to depose him, Ludwig died in mysterious circumstances.

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Born into the royal Wittelsbach family of Bavaria, with its legacy of madness, depression and eccentricity, Ludwig II's extravagant and ruinously expensive building projects, coupled with increasingly aberrant behaviour caused the people of his day to wonder. Was Ludwig mad? Was he a genius? Was he just a lonely man, having looked for and given up on love, seeking some kind of spiritual fulfillment? Even today, we wonder. What was the impetus behind his compulsion to build? And was he really insane or a victim of his own government's scheming?

From the best-selling author of The Hangman's Daughter, a historical thriller set in contemporary Bavaria, about Ludwig II's mysterious death and the long-lost diary that could unlock its secrets.