Catherine the Great reckoned that over her lifetime she had just twelve lovers. If that was the case, her lovers have been outnumbered by her biographers, who often resemble the former in their infatuation or calculating exploitation, their brilliance or their inept fumblings. Robert K Massie, acclaimed for his biographies of Tsar Nicolas II and his consort, and of Peter the Great, is certainly both enamoured and brilliant – the advocate that anyone accused of heinous crimes, as Catherine the Great has been, would want on the Day of Judgement. He also writes as well as any living novelist. 

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