(If you do not think this trailer is the best thing ever you are wrong)

This movie-trilogy with Roma Schneider as Elisabeth of Austria is very popular here and as a child I was obsessed with it (OK...I will still watch at least the first part when it's on over christmas).

The movies are also about as accurate a portrayal of Elisabeth's life as Sleepy Hollow is an accurate portrayal of American history. It is pretty well known that the movies are a kitsch-fest but somehow that did not stop my family from thinking: 'She likes the movies? Let's give her biographies of the real Elisabeth as present.'

The result was this:

I think my Sisi-obsession started with 10 or so, so I got the first books with 11 or 12...Real Elisabeth's life included lot's of tragedies, quite possibly some for of mental illness and ended when she was assasinated.

12-year-old me somehow managed to read all these books without a) getting traumatized or b) loosing her love for the movies. However, over time my love for Elisabeth in generall cooled down a bit...I didn't read the books again but I also could never bring myself to give them away.

Recently my interest in her and Wittelsbach & Habsburg royalty in general has been awakened again...(via the new movie about Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was Elisabeth's cousin...he also died tragically...Bavarian & Austrian royals were good at dying tragically) and I thought I could re-read these biographies and perhaps sort some of them out if they offer nothing new (or are too inaccurate...the fact that two of them already fail to spell her name properly might be a hint here).

So because I obviously don't have enought ot read. Let's start the re-read!