Una McIlvenna
Una McIlvenna is a literary and cultural historian specializing in early modern and 19th-century Europe. Her most recent book, Singing the News of Death, explores the phenomenon of execution ballads. She is also the author of Scandal and Reputation at the Court of Catherine de Medici. Una is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University, and can be reached at unamcilvenna.com.
Latest from this author
Latest from this author
The execution ballads about the last queen of France spread myths about her that most people still believe.
After his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the former emperor was placed in a 'wretched' home on a remote island.
Pope Pius VI died in captivity, while his successor Pope Pius VII was held hostage for five years.
A prominent cartoonist's mocking depiction of the French emperor managed to stick through the centuries.
As their letters show, Napoleon was love-struck. Joséphine? Not so much. Yet even with affairs on both sides, a deep attachment grew—and endured.
Rivals of Russia's powerful empress invented endless sexual myths—including nymphomania, voyeurism and bestiality—that depicted her as having a voracious carnal appetite.
When Parisians stormed the Bastille in 1789 they weren't only looking for arms, they were on the hunt for more grain—to make bread.
The Diamond Necklace Affair reads like a fictional farce, but it was all true—and would become the final straw that led to demands for the queen's head.
Four hundred years ago, one of England's famous explorers fell lethally out of favor.
These people played integral roles in the uprising that swept through France from 1789-1799.
She did burn hundreds of Protestants at the stake, but also history, as they say, is written by the victors.
