THE DREAM KING, Ludwig II of Bavaria

Hamish Hamilton, London 1977 Hardcover, 25½cms x 21cms, with dust jacket Jacket protected in transparent covering. AS NEW book in AS NEW unclipped dust jacket Fifth Impression of 1970 original. A sensitive boy, Ludwig endured a harsh and isolated upbrining which ill prepared him for the throne that was thrust upon him at the age of eighteen. He immediately summoned Richard Wagner in Munich, to whom he wrote: 'You have been the sole source of my happiness ever since I was a mere boy.' Their relationship developed with all the fervour of German mid-nineteenth-century romanticism. Subsequently the King withdrew more into a dream world: he started to build his fantastic castles; government was neglected, and the Privy Purse was bankrupt. Ludwig II died in his forty-first year - was it accidental, suicide or manslaughter?