Catherine the Great

Simon Dixon
Profile Books

A biography of Catherine the Great, which portrays the ruler, for 34 years, of the largest state in existence since the fall of the Roman Empire, against the background of the court society in which she grew up.

The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos

Michael D. Lemonick (Norton)

A biography of William Herschel, who accidentally discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, and his sister Caroline with whom he pioneered techniques that are still used by astronomers today.

The Earl and His Butler in Constantinople: The Secret Diary of an English Servant Among the Ottomans

Nigel & Caroline Webb

I.B. Tauris

Based on despatches and family letters and his butler’s diary, the story of George Hay, 8^th Earl of Kinnoull, a Scottish aristocrat who served as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1729 to 1736, and his butler, Samuel Medley.

Marie-Thérèse: The Fate of Marie Antoinette’s Daughter, Susan Nagel (Bloomsbury)

A biography of the only surviving child of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, who vanished from public view during the last days of the ancien régime when she was smuggled to Vienna by her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II.

Wrath of God: The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, Edward Paice (Quercus)

An account of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, in which 60,000 souls perished and which ushered in a period of decline in Portugal, and its impact on western thought and religion.