Sunday, February 28, 2021

"The Princess Aline" (1895), a novel based on Alix

Sources:


The novel can be read here:



Above: The fictional Princess Aline of Hohenwald.


Above: Alix.

The 800th post on this blog!

The Princess Aline is a novelette written by the American author Richard Harding Davis. It first debuted in Harper's Monthly before being published in its entirety in 1895; it even became the 5th best-selling novel in the United States for that year. Davis based the novel and its titular character on Alix and his infatuation with her, as the princess's name and likeness in the illustrations makes clear, complete with the birth month and year as June 1872 and the middle names of Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene.

The story is that of a young American artist (obviously a fictional version of the author) who boards a steamship headed for Europe so he can meet the princess Aline of Hohenwald, whom he fell in love with after seeing a picture of her, and is joined by companions he meets along the way.

In an amusing twist, Davis was told by a royal attendant that Alix's grandmother, Queen Victoria, and her surviving daughters had all read the book and enjoyed it. When he asked whether they approved of the ending, in which the princess Aline does not marry the commoner, he was told "of course", "they realized that no other conclusion would have been possible."

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