The Three Empresses: Catherine I, Anne and Elizabeth of Russia

x, 242 pp. Three fascinating women ruled Russian in the forty years before Catherin the Great: Catherine I, the peasant girl who became Peter the Great's mistress, wife, and successor; Anne, Peter's unhappy niece, widowed within weeks of marriage, suffered years of humiliation, and, once in power, planned elaborate humiliations for others; and Elizabeth, the beautiful and promiscuous daughter of Peter and Catherine, who seized her throne by coup d'etat.--jacket.