Ludwig the Second, King of Bavaria

He built castles from dreams and drowned in the weight of reality. Ludwig II of Bavaria was twenty-two when he ascended the throne in 1864, and within years he had transformed from a shy crown prince into the most eccentric monarch in European history. Clara Tschudi's 1908 biography captures a king who spurned the company of ministers for the company of swans, who commissioned Wagner's operas at vast personal expense, and who constructed Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tale fortress that would later capture the world's imagination. Written just two decades after Ludwig's mysterious death at age 40, this account offers an intimate glimpse into the mind of a man the world called mad, though his contemporaries recognized something more complicated: a brilliant, tortured soul imprisoned by the expectations of throne and state. Tschudi traces Ludwig's troubled upbringing, his passionate but turbulent relationship with Wagner, his increasingly reclusive habits, and the political machinations that led to his dramatic deposition. The result is both a portrait of an individual and a meditation on the cruelty of demanding normality from greatness.