Description:
Appraising Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's many identities--celebrity, aristocrat, independent woman, mother--Charlene M. Boyer Lewis is able to show how Madame Bonaparte, as she was known, exercised extraordinary social power at the center of the changing transatlantic world.
Review Quotes: "In this expertly researched and carefully documented biography, Boyer Lewis tells the personal saga of a woman scorned, in the process revealing much about this country's debates over the creation of a national culture and the role of women within it. . . . Besides telling a good story, [Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte] enriches our understanding of the formative first decades of the 19th century. As Boyer Lewis shows, 'republican motherhood' was not the sole form of expression for politically active and engaged women of this period. This fascinating, highly readable book should interest scholars and general readers alike."-- "Library Journal"