Cleopatra: Queen, Lover, Legend

Description

This book gives an account of the way in which different generations have viewed Cleopatra. 'This is a gripping book... A fascinating account of the way in which succeeding generations have seen Cleopatra; as virtuous suicide, inefficient housewife, exuberant lover, professional courtesan, scheming manipulator, femme fatale, incarnation of Isis and bimbo' - Economist

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a cultural historian and critic. She is the author of this book and of Heroes- Saviours, Traitors and Supermen, and is currently at work on a book on Gabriele d'Annunzio and the origins of fascism. She reviews regularly for the Sunday Times Books Section.

Her book has as much in common with Antonia Fraser's Boadicea... It comes, I feel, still closer to Marina's Warner's Monuments and Maidens in its mood and in its spirit, in its careful relation of the visual and verbal. It is a book which builds up pictures in the mind -- Fiona MacCarthy * Observer * Lucy Hughes-Hallett... throws a searching light on two thousand years of male erotic fantasy -- Joan Smith * New Statesman * Richly entertaining and thought-provoking... a fascinating and humorous work... Every Antony should read it * Times Literary Supplement * Lucy Hughes-Hallett's brilliant and discursive study of Cleopatra -- Antonia Fraser * Sunday Times * The world's most famous beauty, for whom the world was well lost, turns out to have been less of a siren, more of a Caesar, in Lucy Hughes-Hallett's entertaining and thoughtful study -- Marina Warner * Independent on Sunday *