EMPRESS OF ALL RUSSIA: Catherine The Great

by Iris Noble ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 1966

The twin curses of juvenile biography are author idealization and fictionalization. With them, Iris Noble has reduced Catherine the Great to a sort of Pollyanna at the court of the Romanovs. The supplied dialogue and ""thoughts"" given are the kind of good intentions more appropriate to that bastion of regal chastity, Queen Victoria. Throughout the book, it is evident that the author has swallowed Catherine's own self-serving, self-excusing memoirs and digested adult history into pap for pubescent girls. Catherine's recognized admirable qualities are played for more than they are worth without the benefit of the startling contrasts of her weaknesses and total self-indulgence, which are inexcusably underplayed. Like Henry VIII and Louis XIV, Catherine the Great doesn't juvenilize. Too much that is essential to an understanding of their psychologies and their times gets scrubbed out. But what's left doesn't wash.

Pub Date: March 21, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Messner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION