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Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon Review

If you combine the history of travel, the last days of the Bonaparte era and the early history of the U.S. with the work of Henry James, you -may- have MRS. ADAMS IN WINTER.

This detailed, insightful account of Louisa Adams' journey with her son from Petersburg to Paris through what was a maze of countries and war zones is both an incredible journey in terms of travel and an odyssey of the mind of a complex woman who combined personal sensitivity with an awareness of her role in one of America's most prominent (and difficult) families.

I found the author's attempts to portray Mrs. Adams' feelings of alienation, insecurity and inferiority very moving: her sadness, and her identification with other women linked to powerful men, were concealed almost as well as her formidable Mother-in-Law might have liked under the guise of a lovely, accomplished, socially adept lady (in the old sense).

Adding to this book's particular appeal is the grace of its writing. Like Henry James and Jane Austin, the author focuses on the interior monologue and the small square of ivory, set against the backdrop of monumental events.

Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon Feature

ISBN13: 9780374215811

Condition: New

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Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon Overview

Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son left St. Petersburg in a heavy Russian carriage and set out on a difficult journey to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon’s return from Elba. Along the way, she learned what the long years of Napoleon’s wars had done to Europe, what her old friends in the royal court in Berlin had experienced during the French occupation, how it felt to have her life threatened by reckless soldiers, and how to manage fear.

The journey was a metaphor for a life spent crossing borders: born in London in 1775, she had grown up partly in France, and in 1797 had married into the most famous of American political dynasties and become the daughter-in-law of John and Abigail Adams.

The prizewinning historian Michael O’Brien reconstructs for the first time Louisa Adams’s extraordinary passage. An evocative history of the experience of travel in the days of carriages and kings, Mrs. Adams in Winter offers a moving portrait of a lady, her difficult marriage, and her conflicted sense of what it meant to be a woman caught between worlds.

Michael O’Brien is Professor of American Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810–1860, which won the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History.

Early in 1815, Louisa Catherine Adams and her young son set out from St. Petersburg to meet her husband, John Quincy Adams, in Paris. She traveled through the snows of eastern Europe, down the Baltic coast to Prussia, across the battlefields of Germany, and into a France, then experiencing the tumultuous events of Napoleon’s return from Elba. Along the way, she learned what the long years of Napoleon’s wars had done to Europe, what her old friends in the royal court in Berlin had experienced during the French occupation, how it felt to have her life threatened by reckless soldiers, and how to manage fear.

The journey was a metaphor for a life spent crossing borders: born in London in 1775, she had grown up partly in France, and in 1797 had married into the most famous of American political dynasties and become the daughter-in-law of John and Abigail Adams.

The prizewinning historian Michael O’Brien reconstructs for the first time Louisa Adams’s extraordinary passage. An evocative history of the experience of travel in the days of carriages and kings, Mrs. Adams in Winter offers a moving portrait of a lady, her difficult marriage, and her conflicted sense of what it meant to be a woman caught between worlds.

“Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, a woman who spent her life in voyages both literal and metaphorical, above all longed to leave her mark on the landscape of the life she passed through. The noted historian Michael O’Brien gives Louisa her voice, assuring her place in history as a woman ‘who was,’ as she put it. Take these twin journeys, rendered with precision and grace by a master—across the dramatic frozen landscape of Napoleon’s Europe, and deep within the mind and heart of one of the most compelling characters in American history.”—Catherine Allgor, Presidential Chair and Professor of History, University of California at Riverside

“O’Brien’s compelling [and] . . . splendidly researched work . . . makes for the best of reading.”—Phyllis Meras, The Providence Journal

“This enthralling, vividly written book tells the story of an amazing journey in extraordinary times undertaken by a most uncommon woman . . . [O’Brien] displays admirable psychological insight into Mrs. Adams’ usually complex personality and general gestalt . . . Mr. O’Brien has done a superb job of really understanding one of our lesser known first ladies.”—Martin Rubin, The Washington Times

“A splendid success . . . In addition to his vivid portrait of the European countryside, its history, and its notable personalities, O’Brien includes well-placed and often lengthy digressions that combine to form a sort of biography of Mrs. Adams . . . Mrs. Adams in Winter contains the best biography yet published of Louisa Adams . . . O’Brien’s elaborate description of Europe’s post-road system as it existed 200 years ago helps make his book such a pleasure to read.”—Paul C. Nagel, The American Scholar

“O’Brien’s subtle and sinuously original book provides a detailed reconstruction of the journey and what it meant to make it . . . It was daring of O’Brien to find the core of Louisa’s journey in the notion of a woman raising her head in a society that had no place for the elevation. Daring, but his brilliantly argued portraits of Adams versus Adams make it convincing.”—Richard Eder, The Boston Globe

“This innovative and creatively told personal history of a forgotten figure bound by marriage to an ambitious American statesman bristles with insight into the era. Witty, informed, sophisticated, and moving; essential reading.”—Stewart Desmond, Library Journal

“Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, a woman who spent her life in voyages both literal and metaphorical, above all longed to leave her mark on the landscape of the life she passed through. The noted historian Michael O’Brien gives Louisa her voice, assuring her place in history as a woman ‘who was,’ as she put it. Take these twin journeys, rendered with precision and grace by a master—across the dramatic frozen landscape of Napoleon’s Europe, and deep within the mind and heart of one of the most compelling characters in American history.”—Catherine Allgor, Presidential Chair and Professor of History, University of California at Riverside

“Louisa Catherine Adams is an unjustly forgotten figure in American history, a formidable woman with a keen eye for the smallest details of political life. Now comes Michael O’Brien with a fresh, engaging account of Mrs. Adams’s 1815 journey from St. Petersburg to Paris. It is a brilliant conceit, beautifully executed, and O’Brien succeeds admirably in capturing the complexities of the woman and her times.”—Jon Meacham, author of American Lion

“O’Brien’s narrative is richly contextual, encompassing not only the great personalities of the age, whom Mrs. Adams met, but penetrating the secrets of a complicated marriage . . . A wide-sweeping historical survey and original intellectual journey.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Though much has been written about Abigail Adams, the feisty First Lady and Revolutionary War heroine who captured the collective imaginations of generations of Americans, little interest has been paid to her daughter-in-law, Louisa Catherine Adams. Married to John Quincy Adams and the only First Lady to be born and raised outside of the U.S., she spent her formative years in England and France, never setting foot upon American soil until she was twenty-six years old. Her full-length biography is a fascinating one, but historian O’Brien has extrapolated an incredible adventure to serve as a metaphor for her life and times. During the winter of 1815, Mrs. Adams and her young son set forth from St. Petersburg, Russia, traveling overland through battle-torn Europe for 40 days, to meet her husband in Paris. Years later, Louisa penned a memoir of that arduous journey, and O’Brien has adeptly filled in her gaps with historical and sociological texturing. This compelling combination of biography, travelogue, and adventure does an admirable job resurrecting one of the many forgotten females in the annals of American history."—Margaret Flanagan, Booklist

"Beginning her nearly solitary winter trek from St. Petersburg to Paris in 1815, Louisa Adams experienced 40 days of independence from the constrictions she suffered as wife to future American president John Quincy Adams. Recounting her journey in minute detail, O'Brien, Cambridge professor of American intellectual history, juxtaposes her encounters with a dazzling array of fashionable nobles with ruined towns and impoverished survivors struggling in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. O'Brien effectively highlights Louisa's unease as a European-bred, naturalized American descended from a mother's illegitimate birth, who marries into the intimidating Puritan family of John and Abigail Adams. Using a range of sources, O'Brien reconstructs memories omitted in Louisa's memoir and delves into a 50-page diversion on her marriage, slowing the travelogue's pace. Readers of American and European history will exult in the informative contrast of postrevolutionary American values and the glittering European and Russian courts, which steadfastly ignored the horrific effects of continental warfare."—Publishers Weekly

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Customer Reviews

A Journey and a Portrait - Loves the View - Hawaii
Through a discussion Louisa Adams' trip of 1815, Michael O'Brien draws a portrait of the life and character of Louisa Adams and the means, methods and costs of travel before the combustion engine and the tourist industry.

The initial chapter describes the pomp and pageantry of the Russian Court and the marginal American role in it. O'Brien moves on to the travel preparations and life on the post roads. The text is supplemented by illustrations of the towns, bridges, vehicles, buildings and a few portraits. There are interesting anecdotes about minor historical figures such as Elizabeth Chudleigh, Marquis Fillipo Paulicci, Queen Luise of Prussia and Claude Etienne Michel. There is a good map at the beginning with blow ups focusing on areas of interest. There is a good table of place names at the end and a good index. The supplemental parts of the book are well chosen and a big help to the reader.

The discussion and interpretation of Mrs. Adams' life and character, while good and worthwhile, seems to be forced into the narrative. For instance, "...coming within a mile of the town called by the locals 'Tschudelei'..." brings up the story of Elizabeth Chudleigh who like Mrs. Adams is English and has skeletons in her family closet. This segues into the narrative on Mrs. Adams' birth family. Similarly, the question as to why the threat of Napoleon's army does not deter Mrs. Adams from pushing ahead from Frankfurt to Paris (the answer appears to be family) prompts the discourse on the loss of her daughter, her stultifying marriage and her relations with her in-laws.

The book needs a more descriptive title. The "in winter" part suggests old age, but Louisa Adams is 40 and will live another 37 years. If you then assume "winter" and the travel sub-title refer to the trip through with long nights and snow, you're leaving out the biographical content which is equal to, or may be more meaningful than, the journey content.

I would rate this higher than 3 stars for O'Brien's insights into the Adams family and the re-creation of the trip if it weren't for the rambling nature of the text. Not only is the material on the Adams Family sandwiched in, some people and place portraits, while they may be interesting (such as that of Elizabeth Chudleigh), are given a lot of space in proportion to their value to the main two narratives.

Those looking for a travelogue for early 19th century Russia might want to try EMPIRE OF THE CZAR. While the author too often repeats his views on the Tzar, it gives the best portrait of Russia in this period that I'm aware of.

A solid addition to any historical biography collection - Midwest Book Review - Oregon, WI USA
The last few decades of peace are telling of a war-weary continent that has not avoided conflict for such long periods. "Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon" tells the story of the wife of John Quincy Adams, as she traveled through Europe after the long string of the Napoleonic wars which devastated the region. Her life was spent traveling much of the world, and has shaped much of her and her husband's politics. "Mrs. Adams in Winter" is a solid addition to any historical biography collection.

Angered and Disappointed - Mountain Girl -
No reputable publisher should have permitted the printing of this book in this condition. Where are the editors who work on books?

My husband and I have long believed that Louis Adams ' story has been long overdue and we jumped to buy it. This is not it.!
As a travel book it is dry and uninformative and as a biography, a dismal failure.
O'Brians account of the trip has more spulation than fact. "She probably went here." "She likely
stopped there." She would have seen this or that. Names were dropped, often with little identifying information. What information that did identify individuals was poorly written-boring. O'Brians ending was insulting to the reader. Was this ending hurried, expedient?

Transitions to biographical infomation were nonexistant. I got little feel for the broad picture of Louisa's life, but some feel for the marriage. Was the selectivity of biographical information a correct choice? I would not trust this aurthor to choose for me what was essential to know about Louisa and her place in the family.

Please forward this to the author and publisher.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 27, 2010 02:50:05

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