Dutiful daughter, frustrated wife, passionate lover, domineering mother, doting grandmother, devoted friend, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers-the Empress Catherine II, the Great, was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian Imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during those years she built on the work begun by her most famous predecessor, Peter the Great, to establish Russia...

Presents the story of Kate Middleton's early life, first romances, and love with Prince William.

"[A] superb biography….Scholarly, refreshing, commonsensical, and compelling, vividly portraying the charismatic Empress and her times." -Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Sashenka Simon Dixon's Catherine the Great is a complete and revealing portrait of an extraordinary leader, chronicling her rise to power and her remarkable reign as empress of Russia. Catherine Merridale, author of Ivan's War, calls this definitive history, "attractive,...

Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, Catherine House is a college with an experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment. It has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. Tuition, room and board are free, but students are required to give up everything for the three years they attend -- summers included. Family, friends,...

In 1501 fifteen-year-old Catharine of Aragon arrives in England to marry Arthur, the eldest son of King Henry VII, but soon finds her expectations of a happy settled life radically changed when Arthur unexpectedly dies and her future becomes the subject of a bitter dispute between the kingdoms of England and Spain.

Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine's own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine's story from her troubled childhood...

Since it was first published in France, The Sexual Life of Catherine M. has become a global literary phenomenon, hailed as one of the most important books on sexuality to be published in decades. Catherine Millet, the eminent editor of Art Press, has always led a free and active sexual life-from alfresco encounters in Italy to a gang bang on the edge of the Bois du Boulogne to a high-class orgy at a chichi Parisian restaurant. She has taken pleasure...

Presents the life of the wife of the sixth president, covering her early life abroad, her diplomatic mission in Russia, her role as a famous Washington hostess, and her participation in the political and social events of her time.

Catherine Hogarth, who came from a cultured Scots family, married Charles Dickens in 1836, the same year he began serializing his first novel. Together they traveled widely, entertained frequently, and raised ten children. In 1858, the celebrated writer pressured Catherine to leave their home, unjustly alleging that she was mentally disordered-unfit and unloved as wife and mother. Constructing a plotline nearly as powerful as his stories of Scrooge...

While her tyrannical family is out of favor in Italy, young Catherine de Medici is raised in convents, then in 1533, when she is fourteen, her uncle, Pope Clement VII, arranges for her marriage to prince Henri of France, who is destined to become king.