Victor WolfsonCritiques

1128 The Mayerling Murder, by Victor Wolfson (read 18 Sep 1971) While Mayerling has intrigued me for years, this book seemed so artlessly written that I feared reading it might be a waste of time. Lo and behold, it reminded me of the fascination I found in the story about Anastasia. The author's theory is that Rudolph was murdered there at Mayerling on Jan 30, 1889--and it makes the suicide theory seem quite ridiculous. He hints four Prussian hunters shot Rudolph through the window! Again, I wish an expert in historical investigation had done the book. This author says the two most useful books on Mayerling are Rudolph, by Carl Lonyay (London 1949) and The Road to Mayerling by Richard Barkelay (St Martin's 1958) (which I read 21, 1973--and have commented on here on LibraryThing). There is a lot of conjecture and surmise in this book, but I thought it intriguing, and it told me far more about Mayerling than I have ever known before, even though I've read several accounts of Hapsburg years--beginning with rhe Bertita Harding books that so scared my brain back in high school summers.