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It is a hefty, sprawling work, more than 400 pages long, but at no point does it begin to sag under its own weight. Perhaps because its spread is solidly supported by facts, Mayo’s intricate plot trips along at a natural, inexorable pace, easily traveling the sweeping map she has laid out for it, from Washington to Mexico City and all the way to the imperial halls of Europe… a swashbuckling, riotous good time, befitting the fairy-tale promise of the opening sentence.- Austin American-Statesman

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire packs a wallop. It is a fascinating historical account delivered in such sweeping, compelling prose as to ring more like literature than fact—and, fundamentally, one could say that it’s both; it proves false that old Dorothy Parker adage about historical novels being neither novels nor history. This is an extensively researched and brilliantly organized book, combining geopolitics, international finance, military strategy, and, alas, the eternal struggle of a family, a child, and the human heart in the midst of it all… Mayo, who has lived in Mexico for many years and has written extensively about its history and culture, is the author of a travel memoir about Baja California, among other works. Her literary style is seasoned, intelligent, and wonderfully informed - Himilce Novas, Multicultural Review

En México se han escrito novelas históricas que recrean con erudición, maestría y poesía una época, un episodio, una atmósfera y unos personajes. Pienso, desde luego, en Noticias del imperio de Fernando del Paso; también en la obra de Enrique Serna sobre Santa Anna, la de Rosa Beltrán sobre Guerrero o la reciente novela de C.M. Mayo: El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano, sobre el nieto de Iturbide en la corte de Maximiliano. - Enrique Krauze, Reforma (Mexico City)

I have read a few sweeping historical novels that have remain inside of me forever. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is one of those, Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is another, Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago is another, and now The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is another. - James Tipton, Mexico Connect

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire sheds incredible light on the day-to-day happenings in a royal court that was doomed, from the hour of coronation, to fail….Painstaking historical and cultural research is put to good use in Mayo’s narrative, but the true texture of this novel is the rich and credible representations of the secondary characters. From the emperor’s guards to the toddler’s nurse, the supporting cast of perspectives provides a full insider’s view of 19th-century life in Chapultepec Castle and Mexico City…. The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a stunning achievement, an inspired novel that steers clear of boring history lessons and instead zeroes in on the smallest epicenter— Principe Agustin de Iturbide y Green— to spiral out into a wondrous period, 1860s Mexico, a time of political possibility and unrest in which “persons who do not appear to share even a footprint’s worth of common ground turn out to have destinies bound together in painful knots.” - Rigoberto Gonzalez, The El Paso Times

“Partiendo de una concienzuda y afortunada búsqueda en archivos públicos y privados, Mayo logró reunir un caudal de información notable de la que hace uso con bastante desenvoltura….No me queda sino celebrar esta novela, que, comenzando lentamente, termina subyugando por su notable narración.” - Pablo Soler Frost, Letras Libres

El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano no es una biografía… O para decirlo más acertadamente, es mucho más que una biografía. Se trata de una historia apasionada y original sobre ese experimento trágico, heroico, cruel, cómico y hasta absurdo que fue el breve gobierno de Maximiliano de Habsburgo en México. Para escribir la crónica de esa epopeya, la autora, C.M. Mayo, se involucró en un esfuerzo de investigación monumental. De no haber ocurrido de esa manera, el producto editorial habría resultado muy diferente y, por supuesto, de meor calidad… La perseverencia en este tipo de indagaciones resulta fundamental. Es la histamina que impulsa la exploración sin truega y que la autora nos comparte en esa suerte de confesión intelectual que es el epílogo de su conmovedor libro. - EduardoTurrent, El Economista

Epic in scope, Mayo’s impressively researched novel set in mid-19th century Mexico City mines the true story of the short turbulent reign of the archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Hapsburg, who was made emperor of Mexico in 1864. Childless and desperate for an heir, the emperor makes substantial monetary promises to the parents of a young boy named Agustin. With much trepidation, they agree to give over the boy, who becomes a pawn in a custody battle that begins when Maximilian adopts the two-year-old Agustin with the hopes of having him inherit the throne. Agustin’s American mother, Madame de Iturbide (née Alice Green), soon becomes dissatisfied with the arrangement and pleads with Maximilian to return her son. Maximilian has Alice deported, which sets off an international brawl. Maximilian finally concedes as Mexico devolves “into bankruptcy and lawlessness” and Maximilian’s wife, Carlota, becomes increasingly “unmoored.” Lengthy, expository, meandering and grandiose, Mayo’s reanimation of a crucial period in Mexican history should satisfy history buffs and those in the mood for an engaging story brimming with majestic ambition. - Publisher’s Weekly

“a meticulously researched version of the infamous folly of Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota of Mexico, told in part from the remarkable, lesser-known perspective of Alice Green. ...The story is intriguing, with a cast of characters geerally left unnoticed by historical accounts. Yet Mayo found a plethora of primary source documentation once she started digging…. The story is not simply chronological, but includes frequent dranatic depictions of events laternated with supplying context, a technique that pricks interest and moves things along smoothly despite the complex baggage of historical facts…. This richly rendered telling lifts [the prince’s] story from history’s sidelines and fills it with life.” - Patricia Dubrava, Bloomsbury Review

This interesting yarn about Maximilian’s heir presumptive, Prince Agustín de Iturbide y Green, is set against the backdrop of the second Mexican Emperor’s ill-fated reign. Author C.M. Mayo— winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her collection Sky Over El Nido— has conducted significant research to compile a story that is both grand yet intimate about a child who sparked an international scandal. The intriguing tale of the Prince of Mexico offers a fine historical lesson about why Maximilian’s paternalistic adventure in a country that did not want him was doomed from the start. - The Latin American Review of Books

Mayo resurrects a sad story from the footnotes of history and embroiders the few details known about it into a rich historical novel… Mayo comfortably blends fiction with fact while illuminating a dark corner of North American history.- Booklist

Mayo’s cultural insights are first-rate, and the glittering, doomed regime comes to life in quick vignettes. Recommended to readers of popular history as well as historical fiction. Fans of such Mexican-themed novels as Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate or Sandra Cisnero’s Caramelo might enjoy this for context and contrast. - Library Journal

... [A] rich historical novel… Political ambitions, the intrigues of the imperial court, and the relationship between countries at the height of European colonization all the drive the intricate plot of the novel, taking us on a dizzying journey from Washington to Veracruz to Paris and back to Mexico and the U.S…. The evocative descriptions and ironic commentary on the relationship between cultures make this an enjoyable and important novel, particularly relevant for these times. - Literal: Latin American Voices

“The story has plenty to lure the reader: banditry, kidnapping, hubris, madness; but it is a fine attention to detail, on both the factual and visceral levels, that distinguishes C.M. Mayo’s first novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. Drawing from original research and a nuanced understanding of Mexico, Mayo relates one of Mexico’s more fantastic historical episodes: Maximilian, an idealistic Austrian prince who, with French backing, is crowned emperor in 1864…Perceptive, and adept at imagining the peeves and wicked daydreams of people from all walks of life… ” - The People’s Guide to Mexico

C. M. MAYO

THE LAST PRINCE OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a sweeping historical novel of Mexico during the short, tragic, at times surreal, reign of Emperor Maximilian and his court. Even as the American Civil War raged north of the border, a clique of Mexican conservative exiles and clergy convinced Louis Napoleon to invade Mexico and install the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Habsburg, as Emperor. A year later, the childless Maximilian took custody of the two year old, half-American, Prince AgustÃ¬n de Iturbide y Green, making the toddler the Heir Presumptive. Maximilian’s reluctance to return the child to his distraught parents, even as his empire began to fall, and the Empress Carlota descended into madness, ignited an international scandal. This lush, grand read is based on the true story and illuminates both the cultural roots of Mexico and the political development of the Americas. But it is made all the more captivating by the depth of Mayo’s writing and her understanding of the pressures and influences on these all too human players.

$16.95 US / $19.95 C | Fiction Paperback | 6x9 | 432 pages

May 2010

ISBN: 978-1-936071-61-6 | Carton Quantity: 20

EISBN: 978-1-93607-141-8

OUR STORY TURNS NOW to an ivory castle perched by the uneasy sea within sight of the city of Trieste. In the northeastern corner of Italy, then part of the Austrian Empire, Il Castello di Miramare, or, Miramar, was the residence of the archduke who was second-in-line to the throne. Whereas Vienna’s ancient and grey Hofburg Palace huddled around shadowy courtyards, Miramar stood new, crisp, unafraid of the Italian sun. Even today in the early morning, just before the sun rises from behind the hills, and all the birds are singing, its tower seems to glow from within. Yes, sometimes a story’s beginning fools the eye, the way a fata morgana projects a landscape that may in fact lie hundreds of miles beyond the horizon. But sometimes, too, persons who do not appear to share even a footprint’s worth of common ground turn out to have destinies bound together in painful knots. Indeed, it was in the midst of the Iturbides’s domestic idyl that, beyond the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in his still under-construction Miramar Castle, the Archduke Maximilian von Habsburg very reluctantly accepted the Mexican throne— that same throne which had belonged to the ill-starred Don Agustín de Iturbide. The Archduke’s reluctance was an ugly embarrassment for all concerned. However, the details of the episode were not generally known until years afterwards when most of the participants had gone to their reward, for, in Austria and in Mexico during the French Occupation, sharp-eyed censors inspected letters, magazines, newspapers, and telegrams, and they had not the least hesitation in confiscating matter their superiors might deem offensive. Which is not to suggest that no one in Mexico knew of the troubles surrounding the Archduke’s acceptance of the Mexican throne, merely, that the Iturbides, as most members of Mexico City society, were not privy to the whole of it. This turned out to have exceedingly unfortunate consequences.

C. M. Mayo has been living in and writing about Mexico for many years. Her story collection, Sky Over El Nido, won the Flannery O’ Connor award for short fiction.

C.M. Mayo's Website

Carte-de-visite of Prince Agustin de Iturbide y Green circa 1865

C.M. Mayo on Twitter

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