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Cleopatra's palace shimmered with onyx and gold but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Stacy Schiff boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order, a generation before the birth of Christ. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff's is a luminous reconstruction of a dazzling life. Under [Schiff's] pen, the mirage of Cleopatra shimmers down the deserts of time and suddenly stands before us, in new and thrilling sharp focus ... full of well researched context and much learned speculation -- Jan Moir * Daily Mail * We see a great queen painted in dazzling colours in the twilight of a dazzling kingdom ... new life is breathed into an indisputably authentic icon * Sunday Times * An inspired combination of carefully parsed texts, new research and pulse-quickening descriptive writing ... formidable and spellbinding achievement * Guardian * [Schiff] has done her homework and writes elegantly and wittily, creating truly evocative word pictures. * Independent * Schiff has produced a highly literary, imaginative, coherent narrative, "restoring context" to the sources she delves into in an intelligent way. Her writing is energetic, evocative... She also has an unerring nose for what is interesting * Daily Telegraph *

Cleopatra