Epistolary Art of Catherine the Great

The first toanalyse comprehensively the letters of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, thisstudy traces Catherine's development as a letter-writer, her networkingstrategies, her image-making, and the materiality of her letters. It arguesthat her letters were her literary masterpiece and a key means by which sheparticipated in the intellectual and social life of the Enlightenment.