*The New York Times Bestseller*

A dazzling reassessment of the most iconic - and maligned - woman in history.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and ingenuity have been lost.

Now, in a masterly return to the classical sources, Pulitzer Prizewinner Stacy Schiff separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

'An inspired combination of carefully parsed texts, new research and pulse-quickening descriptive writing ... Spellbinding' Guardian
'Imaginative, energetic, evocative' Daily Telegraph