The King of Corsica

A modern classic where history, philosophy, and eroticism collide in the grand tradition of the 18th-century novel.

The son of an impoverished Westphalian aristocrat, Theodor von Neuhoff is both seductive and opportunistic. Sent to Versailles to be a page to Princess Palatine, he distinguishes himself as a brilliant and fluent conversationalist with a taste for the ladies and for political intrigue. His missions take him to Holland, Mecklenburg, Venice, and Spain, where he discovers his true vocation as a double agent. Convinced that politics is only a game, in 1736 he has himself proclaimed king by the Corsicans rebelling against Genovese hegemony. As Theodor the First, he plans to transform "his island" into a prosperous kingdom. Yet, he gravely overestimates his own abilities as a monarch and goes down in history as the man who was king for a summer, dying a pauper in London.

In The King of Corsica, Michael Kleeberg–an accomplished prose stylist–draws the portrait of a historical figure caught between the excesses of the Baroque age and the Enlightenment, a master of illusion whose preoccupations are all too familiar to modern readers: money, love, and fame.