Catherine the Great: Life and Legend by Alexander, John T - 1989

New York / London: Oxford Uniiversity Press. Very Good/Very Good. 1989. Hard Cover. 8vo 0195052366 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. Neat name & date on ffep. Plates. xii, 418 pages clean and tight. John Alexander has provided the first popular biography of one of the most powerful, infamous, and colourful figures in modern history. Empress of the vast Russian Empire by the age of 33, Catherine's private and public life generated tremendous controversy, and she has been portrayed variously as a political genius, a despotic foreign adventuress, a tyrant, and a nymphomaniac. John Alexander's detailed research draws on little-known sources, including Catherine's love notes, to produce a much-needed, balanced appraisal of this remarkable woman throughout the whole of her long reign. .