Overview

'Brilliant and discursive' Antonia Fraser, Sunday Times 'Hughes-Hallett's exemplary reappraisal … throws a searching light on two thousand years of male erotic fantasy' Joan Smith, New Statesman Winner of the FAWCETT PRIZE and EMILY TOTH AWARD In the 2,000 years since her death, Cleopatra has been recreated over and over again by poets, artists and filmmakers, each time in a form that fits the prejudices, anxieties and yearnings of the age that produced it. To Chaucer she was the model of a good wife, while to Cecil B. DeMille she was ‘the wickedest woman in history’. In this revised edition of Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s award-winning cultural history, the real Cleopatra – one of the most powerful women in the ancient world – is skilfully revealed alongside a legion of imaginary counterparts and the sexual, racial and political messages they carry.

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9780008781323

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Reviews

'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 'In Lucy Hughes-Hallett's exemplary reappraisal [she] brings a trenchant intelligence to bear on the subject … and 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' TLS

Author Information

Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike, a biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction, the Costa Biography Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Paddy Power Political Biography of the Year Award. Her other books are Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions which was published in 1990 to wide acclaim, and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen, published in 2004, which garnered similar praise. Cleopatra won the Fawcett Prize and the Emily Toth Award. Lucy Hughes-Hallett is also a respected critic who has reviewed for all the major British newspapers, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.

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