WHAT WAS THE EMPEROR LIKE in his private life? Katrin Unterreiner meticulously explores this question. She breathes life into the historic sources, tells of the emperor's childhood and his relationship with his mother, Archduchess Sophie, his great and lifelong love for Empress Elizabeth, and of his troubled relationship with his only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, who took his own life at the age of 33. From 1848 to his death in 1916, Francis Joseph I ruled an empire of 56 million people. During this long reign he left an indelible mark on the capital city of Vienna and held together the multinational empire as a sacrosanct symbolic figure. The official image of the emperor is one of a conscientious and spartan ruler who remained true to his ideals. In contrast, this book shows the unknown sides of the emperor: as an imaginative child, as family man and father, humorous monarch, passionate lover and as a ruler who suffered many blows of fate - all described here in great detail and illustrated with pictures from his personal collection.

Katrin Unterreiner studied history and art history at the University of Vienna and was for several years Research Director of the Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges. m.b.H. and Curator of the Sisi Museum in the Vienna Hofburg, which opened in 2004. Since 2013 she has been Curator of the Imperial Family Collection Plachutta. She is the author of numerous publications about the Habsburgs, the Vienna Hofburg, and the cultural and everyday history of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.