Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

Acclaim for Simon Sebag Montefiore’s

CATHERINE THE GREAT AND POTEMKIN

“Colorful figures cross the pages of this flamboyant biography…. A rollicking tale, balanced in treatment of its controversial characters.”

—The Boston Globe

“Superb…sumptuous…. Montefiore has a journalist’s instinct for getting behind the official version of events.”

—The Daily Telegraph (London)

“A wonderful story, and Sebag Montefiore tells it with joyful verve…. The material is so enjoyable, and it is related with evident pleasure and enthusiasm.”

—The Times (London)

“A good, racy historical read…. The amazing story of Catherine the Great’s lover, then favorite, then secret husband, then chief advisor in ruling Russia, might seem the stuff of fiction; fortunately Sebag Montefiore’s researches have been so evidently extensive that this is clearly not the case.”

—Antonia Fraser, author of The Wives of Henry VIII

“With great industry and huge enthusiasm [Montefiore] has combed the archives to give us a detailed account of a gigantic…figure.”

—Sunday Express (London)

“[Montefiore’s] fascination shines through every page of this book…. It could easily have been double the length, so enjoyable is it to read.”

—The Sunday Telegraph (London)

“Effortlessly readable and compelling. This is history as it should be written.”

—The Sunday Herald

“A wonderful book…as magnificent as its subject…. Captures the iridescent spirit of Russia’s greatest adventurer.”

—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana

“This splendid biography, as sprawling, magnificent and exotic as its subject, provides for the first time in English a fully researched, accurate, and immensely readable history of this extraordinary man.”

—Literary Review

“A passionate, but scholarly, defense of one of the greatest creative figures in Russian history.”

—Evening Standard (London)

“Exhaustive and beautifully written…. A magnificent biography…which is as industrious and exuberant as the man himself.”

—Daily Mail (London)

“Montefiore’s enthusiasm and knowledge make this much more than just an engaging biography, it is a headlong gallop of a read.”

—Anthony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

“This gripping and richly researched biography…makes it easy to see why novelists are often seduced away from fiction to write biography—where, just sometimes, implausible reality exceeds plausible fantasy many times over.”

—Peter Nasmyth, Times Literary Supplement

“An example of how to make a page-turner out of the most profound scholarship.”

—New Statesman

“This book…written with great verve…is based on a wealth of sources…Montefiore’s narrative breathes new life into them. Montefiore makes the reader appreciate the genius and forgive the absurdity.”

—Professor Lindsey Hughes, Rossica

“[Catherine the Great and Potemkin] opened up a whole new world…to me.”

—Alain de Botton, Sunday Telegraph (Books of the Year)

“A rather wonderful book.”

—Mick Jagger, Sunday Times

Simon Sebag Montefiore

CATHERINE THE GREAT AND POTEMKIN

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a prizewinning historian whose bestselling books have been published in over forty languages. Catherine the Great and Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards; Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Prize, Los Angeles Times Biography Prize and Le Grand Prix de Biographie; Jerusalem was a number-one international bestseller. His most recent book is The Romanovs. Montefiore is also the author of the acclaimed novels Sashenka and One Night in Winter. He read history at Cambridge University where he received his PhD, and lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children.

ALSO BY SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

nonfiction

The Romanovs

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Young Stalin

Jerusalem: The Biography

Titans of History

fiction

Sashenka

One Night in Winter

To Santa

VINTAGE BOOKS EDITIONS, 2005, 2016

Copyright © 2000, 2016 by Sebag Montefiore