Catherine The Great

A softcover edition, published by arrangement with E. P. Dutton, in fine condition. The covers are clean and square, and corners are sharp and undamaged. Pages are bright and crisp throughout, with a pleasing warm yellowing to the page edges. A tight book that shows no signs of having been read. A biography of Catherine II of Russia by Henri Troyat, the Prix Goncourt laureate and member of the Académie française, born in Moscow to parents of Armenian descent and later based in Paris. Originally published in French as Catherine la Grande by Librairie Flammarion in 1977, and translated into English by Joan Pinkham for the E. P. Dutton first English-language edition in 1980. Troyat follows Catherine from her years as a minor German princess through her marriage to Peter III, her seizure of the Russian throne, and her long reign as patron of the Enlightenment, military strategist, and correspondent of Voltaire and Diderot.