Catherine II of Russia occupies a unique position in the European imagination. She belonged to a dying era, the middle and late years of the 18th century, when the European monarchies were lumbering to catastrophe. She ruled a country perceived by Western Europeans to be as barbaric as it was exotic, Asiatic in culture yet not quite outside the pale of Christendom. Within her lifetime the achievements of her reign, which were considerable, were completely overshadowed by the reputation she attained for lechery, sexual voracity and murder. Her story is an eventful one, full of drama and conflict, the story of how a precocious, lonely child, deprived of love and with a strong need for emotional reassurance, was thrust into prominence at the Russian court at the age of 14, and went on to take over the government of the country herself in a bloodless coup.