Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
INTIMATE AND BEAUTIFUL!, January 14, 2000
By A Customer
A beautiful look at the last Imperial Family of Russia. Anyone with an interest in Nicholas and Alexandra would love to own this book. Although the text is interesting and informative, it is through the photographs, taken from the Romanov family albums, that we come to know them so intimately. Both Nicholas and Alexandra were phtography enthusiasts; they and their five children all owned cameras and used them frequently.Lavish and gorgeous, this book is also unique. I cannot recall one other famous person (or family) to whom we have such intimate photographic access. Reproductions of the family's letters and diaries are also included. This book would certainly be a beautiful and treasured addition to any Romanoy collection.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolute Excellence!, April 29, 2001
By A Customer
I am a real Romanov buff, and own an extensive Romanov library, including collectors' goodies like Palelogue's `An Ambassador's Memoirs', Pierre Gilliard's `Thirteen Years At The Russian Court', Count Paul Vassili's (Princess Catherine Radziwill's) `The Intimate Life Of The Last Tsarina', and Grand Duchess Marie Pavlona the Younger's `Education Of A Princess', as well as many, many modern biohistories of the Romanovs-and-late-Tsarist-Russia --- to name a few. My collection also includes just about every book of Romanov photographs available. (I buy them as soon as I can, after I hear of a new one, and I've gone without *lunches* to save money for my Romanov books!)All this by way of prologue to the following statement: This book is absolute excellence. If you must choose between lunch for a week and the book --- buy the book. If you live in the outback, postal service and phone lines are down for the coming week and the nearest bookstore is 25 miles away through roadless, Survivor-type territory and you only have two days to get there before they sell their one copy to someone else --- pack your backpack, grab your granola, and start walking. It's just that good. This is the first book on that ill-starred family that I've seen that *successfully* manages to combine actual *text* along with the photographs and documents offered; while some are much better than others, Romanov "coffeetable" books do tend to be lazy about text, relying on photos and documents to carry the weight. And they pretty much *can*, of course, as they should ---but what a delight to find a book that tries so hard (and very, very often succeeds) for a sense of balance between the three. The wealth of photographs show many that *have* been published many times before, but there is also such a wealth of shots that have been seen very rarely or not at all, prior to this. The documents and artifacts depicted range much farther than in most efforts, and again, what's presented is partly familiar but just as often very unique. Yes, the text has an occasional clumsy and/or sentimental moment (as what book does not?) but on the whole, every page of it is informative and deeply satisfying. There are intelligent ideas and analyses to be found in here, not just the usual reporting of events. And the book itself is aesthetically gorgeous; even the pages have that heavy, creamy, old-time look and feel. Obviously, I cannot recommend this book too highly. On my scale, it's not a five but a ten!
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful photographic tribute to the last tsar, August 14, 2000
This is probably THE best photographic tribute to Nicholas II and his family that I have read. It has more photographs than any other book except "Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia," and unlike that book, it includes a coherent narrative of the Romanovs' lives and deaths. The photographs are breathtaking, and the writing is good. It includes numerous quotes from previously unpublished letters and diaries of the Tsar and Empress and their five children. The information on the children is especially appreciated, since it is so hard to find books that deal with any of the daughters except Anastasia.One flaw that irritated me a great deal was the translation of the Romanovs' letters and diary entries. For example, one fragment was translated "Talked with golden Mitya... nice, sweet he is." Word order is less important in Russian than it is in English; without having access to the original Russian, I can still guess that a correct translation would have been "he is nice, sweet." Another entry is translated "a bit of him she is," instead of the much better "she is a bit of him." Similar mutilations of grammar occur throughout the book's quotes. This sort of thing is just plain sloppy, and very annoying. The other fault I want to mention is from the chapter on Empress Alexandra's childhood. It was written by Dr. Manfred Knodt, who wrote a biography of Alexandra's brother, in German. The chapter quotes from Alexandra's mother, Alice's, letters to HER mother, Queen Victoria. These letters were originally written in English. They were published in English; this volume was then translated into German. The quotes from Alice's letters don't match the English volume; my guess is that the author worked from the German edition, and these quotes were then translated into English. Another minor thing, but sloppy. An editor ought to have caught this. So, overall, the pictures are beautiful and the writing is good. A few sloppy errors in translation, but still one of the best books I've read on the subject.
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