A haunting, original fairy tale from two dazzling debut picture book talents, in the spirit of Neil Gaiman and Carson Ellis. Hortense is a kind and brave girl, but she is sad--even angry--that her shadow follows her everywhere she goes. She hates her shadow, and thinks her shadow must hate her too. But one cold, dark night, when bandits surprise her in the woods, Hortense discovers that her shadow is the very thing she needs most. This stunningly illustrated story stirs the soul with its compelling, subtle exploration of self-esteem, self-identity, and finding inner strength.

Abraham Lincoln raved that this series of historical biographies gave him "just that knowledge of past men and events which I need. I have read them with the greatest interest. To them I am indebted for about all the historical knowledge I have." Considered what we would now call "young adult" literature, this collection, first published between 1848 and 1871, was designed to present a clear, distinct, connected narrative of the lives of the great figures of world history, those people who have been most influential, at least as American pastor and historian JOHN STEVENS CABOT ABBOTT (1805-1877) saw it from his 19th-century perspective. Wildly popular and republished many times under different collected names, this replica set mimics the 1904 reprint known as the "Makers of History" series. It will delight students of history as well as show the scholar how history telling has changed over the last few centuries. More than 30 other volumes in the series are also available from Cosimo Classics. This volume, dating from 1870, covers Hortense Eugnie Ccile Bonaparte (1783-1837), wife of Louis Bonaparte and the mother of Napoleon III, including her royal family, her marriage, the sorrows of exile, and much more.

In presenting to the public the Memoirs of Queen Hortense exactly as she recorded them, in exposing it to scholars—with an intrinsic and absolute respect for the integral historical accuracy of the text—these intimate revelations as set down by her royal hand, Prince Napoleon did a service not only to history but also to the memory of a princess too often harshly criticized eminently French in her heart and mind, to the memory of an unfortunate Queen, to the memory of an exquisite woman. Like the Emperor, one of whose shadows she was and whose touching and affectionate farewell smile she received as he was leaving France for the last time, the Queen of Holland has nothing to lose by having all her acts and even her mistakes fully revealed. This becomes very clear as one peruses these volumes where she took care not to avoid any of the difficulties of her task. She knew what society said about her; she was aware of the reproaches, justified and unjustified, of which she was the object. Frequently, reading between the lines one is conscious of the care her pen took to refute certain implications, sometimes with disdain but never without courage.

Hortense Allart provides a biography of the French feminist and Romantic writer from the nineteenth century. Allart was a close friend and correspondent of several well-known writers of her time, including Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve, Béranger, George Sand, and Marie d'Agoult, and was a first cousin of the poet Sophie Gay de Girardin. In addition to her novels, political and religious essays, and historical writings, her most famous essay Le Femme et la Democratie de Nos Temps makes her stand out in her own time, and serves as a significant precursor to the twentieth century feminist literary movement. The author intermingles biographical information with analyses of her ten novels and her chief essay, and analyzes in modern feminist critical terms how Allart prefigured the reach for a gynocentric language that is the focus of contemporary women's writing, using the original French to quote Allart's works.

This book is a historical fiction novel about a real-life figure named Hortense de Beauharnais. She was Queen consort of Holland and the stepdaughter of Emperor Napoléon I as the daughter of his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. Hortense later married Napoléon I's brother, Louis Bonaparte, who had been made King of Holland. She was the mother of Napoléon III, Emperor of the French; Louis II of Holland; and Napoléon Louis Charles Bonaparte who died at the age of four.