The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great's Russia
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.47 (891 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0300158580 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 352 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-17 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Douglas Smith is a resident scholar at the University of Washington and the author of the prize-winning books Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry and Society in Eighteenth-Century Russia and Love and Conquest: Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin.
Russia's greatest love story has never been properly told, until now." Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire "An engaging narrative Scrupulous research underlies this fascinating picture of life at Russia's top social echelon." George Loomis, Moscow Times" . "The Pearl is a bright, sparkling jewel of a book; a masterpiece that deserves as wide an audience as possible
Douglas Smith presents the most complete and accurate account ever written of the illicit love between Count Nicholas Sheremetev (1751-1809), Russia’s richest aristocrat, and Praskovia Kovalyova (1768-1803), his serf and the greatest opera diva of her time. Blessed with a beautiful voice, Praskovia began her training in Nicholas’s operatic company as a young girl. The book reconstructs Praskovia’s stage career as The Pearl” and the heartbreaking details of her romance with Nicholasyears of torment before their secret marriage, the outrage of the aristocracy when news of the marriage emerged, Praskovia’s death only days after delivering a son, and the unyielding despair that followed Nicholas to the end of his life. Like all the members of Nicholas’s troupe, Praskovia was one of his own serfs. But unlike the others, she utterly captured her master’s heart. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters and set against the backdrop of imperial Russia, this tale of forbidden romance coul
Pearl before swine Sebastian Melmoth This was a disappointing book. The author seems to have spent years in research and ended up with enough material for a short essay, which he inflated with filler to reach book length. The first major problem was that the author seemed unsuited to write about 18th century aristocrats. His views appear to be petit bourgeois and Victorian in that in every chapter. "The Shining Pearl" according to LB. One of the few times I have actually longed to see a story spring from it's pages on to the big screen. "The Pearl" is a fantastic book, history written in vivid detail, which paints a picture of what it was like for a Russian serf girl to go from the unknown to become the star of the operatic stage, and the great love of Nicholas Sheremetev, contemporary of Ca. A truly remarkable book -- hard to put down! Douglas Smith has written a thoroughly readable, immaculately researched tale detailing the life of the talented opera singer Praskovia (aka "The Pearl")--who was born as a serf, but raised to become one of the serf "intelligentsia" (whose job it was to entertain the aristocrats), rose too become an singing star, and eventually entered into a long-term forbidde