Página inicialGruposDiscussãoMaisZeitgeist
Pesquise No Site
Este site usa cookies para fornecer nossos serviços, melhorar o desempenho, para análises e (se não estiver conectado) para publicidade. Ao usar o LibraryThing, você reconhece que leu e entendeu nossos Termos de Serviço e Política de Privacidade . Seu uso do site e dos serviços está sujeito a essas políticas e termos.

Resultados do Google Livros

Clique em uma foto para ir ao Google Livros

The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Bathory…
Carregando...

The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Bathory (original: 2010; edição: 2011)

de Rebecca Johns (Autor)

MembrosResenhasPopularidadeAvaliação médiaMenções
23918111,558 (3.56)3
Was the "Blood Countess" history's first and perhaps worst female serial killer? Or did her accusers create a violent fiction in order to remove this beautiful, intelligent, ambitious foe from the male-dominated world of Hungarian politics?   In 1611, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a powerful Hungarian noblewoman, stood helpless as masons walled her inside her castle tower, dooming her to spend her final years in solitary confinement. Her crime: the gruesome murders of dozens of female servants, mostly young girls tortured to death for displeasing their ruthless mistress. Her opponents painted her as a bloodthirsty skrata--a witch--a portrayal that would expand to grotesque proportions through the centuries. In this riveting dramatization of Erzsébet Báthory's life, the countess tells her story in her own words, writing to her only son--a final reckoning from his mother in an attempt to reveal the truth behind her downfall. Countess Báthory describes her upbringing in one of the most powerful noble houses in Hungary, recounting in loving detail her devotion to her parents and siblings as well as the heartbreak of losing her father at a young age. She soon discovers the price of being a woman in sixteenth-century Hungary as her mother arranges her marriage to Ferenc Nádasdy, a union made with the cold calculation of a financial transaction. Young Erzsébet knows she has no choice but to accept this marriage even as she laments its loveless nature and ultimately turns to the illicit affections of another man. Seemingly resigned to a marriage of convenience and a life of surreptitious pleasure, the countess surprises even herself as she ignites a marital spark with Ferenc through the most unromantic of acts: the violent punishment of an insolent female servant. The event shows Ferenc that his wife is no trophy but a strong, determined woman more than capable of managing their vast estates during Ferenc's extensive military campaigns against the Turks. Her naked assertion of power accomplishes what her famed beauty could not: capturing the love of her husband. The countess embraces this new role of loving wife and mother, doing everything she can to expand her husband's power and secure her family's future. But a darker side surfaces as Countess Báthory's demand for virtue, obedience, and, above all, respect from her servants takes a sinister turn. What emerges is not only a disturbing, unflinching portrait of the deeds that gave Báthory the moniker "Blood Countess," but an intimate look at the woman who became a monster.… (mais)
Membro:BooksBottlesBabies
Título:The Countess: A Novel of Elizabeth Bathory
Autores:Rebecca Johns (Autor)
Informação:Broadway Books (2011), Edition: Reprint, 304 pages
Coleções:Read
Avaliação:**
Etiquetas:Nenhum(a)

Informações da Obra

The Countess de Rebecca Johns (2010)

Carregando...

Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro.

Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro.

» Veja também 3 menções

Mostrando 1-5 de 18 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
Esta es la escalofriante historia de Erszebet Nadasdy, conocida como la Condesa Sangrienta, y acusada de ser la más sanguinaria asesina en serie de la historia. Mató, junto a varios colaboradores, a decenas de chicas jóvenes, infligiéndoles las más terribles torturas. En 1610, fue condenada a cadena perpetua por sus terribles crímenes.
  Natt90 | Dec 20, 2022 |

This book is mostly a 2.5 star yawner. I was prepared a slow descent to madness for Elizabeth Bathory. It felt more like a meander that hit, no slumped to, a dead end. At the end, I neither felt sympathy nor disgust about the Countess.

The book buried me in a litany of names. The names of the royalty were burdensome. The servant girls could have been given more reason to care for them. I understand the Countess was telling the story but there could have been another character who vouched for the innocence or goodness of the servant girls.









( )
  wellington299 | Feb 19, 2022 |
Interesting book about a disturbed/disturbing woman. As a child she saw horrific punishments being meted out to servants. However, as an adult she took punishment too far. But there also seems to be a mental illness; a lack of empathy. Are we born lacking empathy or can we be trained along those lines? I don't know. ( )
  scot2 | Apr 29, 2019 |
Some of you may know of the Blood Countess or the Countess Dracula, the most prolific female serial killer of all time. Born in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1560, she was accused of killing hundreds of young women and some accounts say she murdered up to 650 victims.

When she was eventually caught and faced trial in 1609, she was walled up in a tower in solitary confinement until her death five years later in 1614. It was said Bathory bathed in the blood of her victims to preserve her beauty, but where does fact end and folklore begin?

Author Rebecca Johns attempts to address this in her fictionalised account of Elizabeth Bathory's life in her historical novel The Countess.

Johns takes us through Bathory's childhood growing up in a noble family in 16th Century Hungary, and walks us through her life in a first person narrative. We see her mature from a young girl and face fear, self-doubt, loneliness, love, heartbreak, loss, grief, anger and frustration.

Johns paints a clear picture of the responsibilities of a Countess to run several households and the disappointment and betrayal Bathory feels when her maidservants steal from her or sleep with her husband. Bathory beats them and many of them die, and we get a unique insight during all of this with privileged access to her - albeit fictionalised - thoughts.

What The Countess doesn't do (and cannot do) is respond to, answer or address the accusations Bathory ever bathed in blood. Many of these myths and accounts of Bathory occurred long after her death and it's difficult to address in a fictionalised account of an historical figure, but perhaps this could have been accomplished by a Author's Note at the end.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory's life and crimes have inspired countless artists to reference her in novels, comics, stage plays, operas, songs, TV shows, movies, and even video games. (Don't believe me? Check it out on Wikipedia).

I enjoyed this account of Bathory's life in The Countess, but I finished reading it with a feeling her crimes had been blown out of all proportion, and she wasn't the devil incarnate. Perhaps that was the point all along. ( )
  Carpe_Librum | Jan 11, 2017 |
This is a very well-written book, describing in great detail the treatment of household servants in the courts of the rich landholders of Hungary. While feeling sympathy for Countess Elizabeth in her early years, her later ones that are full of rage and jealousy incorporate a feeling of justification for the ways in which she beats and humiliates the young girls who come to her for being trained. Many parallels can be drawn between the view of servants in this book and the attitudes towards slaves in the American South. ( )
  threadnsong | Jun 18, 2016 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 18 (seguinte | mostrar todas)
sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha

Pertence à série publicada

Você deve entrar para editar os dados de Conhecimento Comum.
Para mais ajuda veja a página de ajuda do Conhecimento Compartilhado.
Título canônico
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em Italiano. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Título original
Títulos alternativos
Data da publicação original
Pessoas/Personagens
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em Italiano. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Lugares importantes
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em Italiano. Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Eventos importantes
Filmes relacionados
Epígrafe
Dedicatória
Primeiras palavras
Citações
Últimas palavras
Aviso de desambiguação
Editores da Publicação
Autores Resenhistas (normalmente na contracapa do livro)
Idioma original
CDD/MDS canônico
LCC Canônico

Referências a esta obra em recursos externos.

Wikipédia em inglês (1)

Was the "Blood Countess" history's first and perhaps worst female serial killer? Or did her accusers create a violent fiction in order to remove this beautiful, intelligent, ambitious foe from the male-dominated world of Hungarian politics?   In 1611, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a powerful Hungarian noblewoman, stood helpless as masons walled her inside her castle tower, dooming her to spend her final years in solitary confinement. Her crime: the gruesome murders of dozens of female servants, mostly young girls tortured to death for displeasing their ruthless mistress. Her opponents painted her as a bloodthirsty skrata--a witch--a portrayal that would expand to grotesque proportions through the centuries. In this riveting dramatization of Erzsébet Báthory's life, the countess tells her story in her own words, writing to her only son--a final reckoning from his mother in an attempt to reveal the truth behind her downfall. Countess Báthory describes her upbringing in one of the most powerful noble houses in Hungary, recounting in loving detail her devotion to her parents and siblings as well as the heartbreak of losing her father at a young age. She soon discovers the price of being a woman in sixteenth-century Hungary as her mother arranges her marriage to Ferenc Nádasdy, a union made with the cold calculation of a financial transaction. Young Erzsébet knows she has no choice but to accept this marriage even as she laments its loveless nature and ultimately turns to the illicit affections of another man. Seemingly resigned to a marriage of convenience and a life of surreptitious pleasure, the countess surprises even herself as she ignites a marital spark with Ferenc through the most unromantic of acts: the violent punishment of an insolent female servant. The event shows Ferenc that his wife is no trophy but a strong, determined woman more than capable of managing their vast estates during Ferenc's extensive military campaigns against the Turks. Her naked assertion of power accomplishes what her famed beauty could not: capturing the love of her husband. The countess embraces this new role of loving wife and mother, doing everything she can to expand her husband's power and secure her family's future. But a darker side surfaces as Countess Báthory's demand for virtue, obedience, and, above all, respect from her servants takes a sinister turn. What emerges is not only a disturbing, unflinching portrait of the deeds that gave Báthory the moniker "Blood Countess," but an intimate look at the woman who became a monster.

Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas.

Descrição do livro
Resumo em haiku

Current Discussions

Nenhum(a)

Capas populares

Links rápidos

Avaliação

Média: (3.56)
0.5
1
1.5
2 6
2.5 1
3 19
3.5 3
4 16
4.5
5 10

É você?

Torne-se um autor do LibraryThing.

 

Sobre | Contato | LibraryThing.com | Privacidade/Termos | Ajuda/Perguntas Frequentes | Blog | Loja | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliotecas Históricas | Os primeiros revisores | Conhecimento Comum | 203,242,156 livros! | Barra superior: Sempre visível