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Petrograd, 1917

Caught in the Revolution

The dramatic, world-shaking story of the Russian Revolution told from an entirely new perspective - through the eye-witness accounts of foreign nationals in Petrograd who witnessed history being made on the streets around them.

A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs

Next year's centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.

This is narrative history at its very best, communicating the confusion, exhilaration, horror and despair of that momentous year

Chronicles the events of 1917 through the eyes of foreigners resident in Petrograd — diplomats, journalists, merchants, factory owners, charity workers and simple Russophiles... a wonderful array of observations, most of them misguided, some downright bizarre. What makes this book so delightful and enlightening is the depth of incredulity it reveals... [A] wonderful book.

Thoroughly-researched and absorbing... this book offers a compelling picture of life in Petrograd in this momentous and often terrible year... One gets a wonderful picture of the extraordinary and beautiful city... and a keen sense of the really grotesque inequality that has always existed there.

A past more dramatic than Chekhov, more tragic than Tolstoy and more romantic than Pasternak... Helen Rappaport collates a vast menagerie of eyewitnesses [from Petrograd 1917] into a cast of fascinating characters... bring[ing] an absorbing period of history closer to home.

A vivid account of the city ‘taut as a wire’… highly readable and fluent… Rappaport has unearthed striking new material

Fascinating… A colourful account of expatriate life in the Russian capital in 1917.

Rappaport has dug deeper. She has unearthed from private sources, the Library of Congress and the Leeds Russian archive numerous accounts previously untold, and gives an unfailingly gripping picture of chaos as seen through the eyes of the orderly.

This book will, no doubt, be followed by many others as the centenary of the revolution approaches. It will be surprising if any match this one for originality, vividness and a visceral sense of excitement... Meticulous, detailed, wonderfully comprehensive.

The strength of Rappaport’s work is the immediacy it provides, the sense of what it was like to experience the Revolution

A vivid account... Give[s] an authentic sense of months of chaos, marked by surging crowds, looted bakeries and outbreaks of gunfire, some seemingly random and some viciously aimed... Rappaport chooses their graphic accounts brilliantly.

Ms Rappaport's book [is] a mosaic of truth which no fictional one could outdo.

Splendid ... Rappaport has unearthed plenty of wonderful new material ... The story [her]  witnesses tell is endlessly fascinating.

This research is impressive and the narrative she has constructed makes for an excellent read

Helen Rappaport is an historian and Russianist with specialisms in the Victorians and revolutionary Russia. 
 
Her books include No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War, Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street – Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer, Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy; Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses and Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd, 1917. A fluent Russian speaker, she has translated many classic Russian plays (including all of Chekhov’s) and was historical consultant to Tom Stoppard’s National Theatre trilogy The Coast of Utopia (2002). She is also a frequent contributor to television and radio documentaries, most recently Russia’s Lost Princesses (BBC2, 2014). She lives in West Dorset.

SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH AND EVENING STANDARD 
 
'[The] centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.' Saul David, Daily Telegraph 
 
'A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs 
 
Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil. Foreign visitors who filled hotels, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps. Among them were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, governesses and volunteer nurses. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareava. 
 
Drawing upon a rich trove of material and through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold, Helen Rappaport takes us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.

Victoria, Albert and the Death That Changed the Monarchy

Magnificent Obsession

A poignant and fascinating account of a queen and country in mourning

A fascinating exposition of the art of mourning which Victoria made peculiarly her own . . . Magnificent Obsession is that rare creature; a scholarly book that wears its learning lightly and is written with clarity and insight. It is a fascinating subject and an even better read: a model of its kind.

In this intriguing study, Helen Rappaport sets out to tell the story of the royal anguish that followed Albert's death in December 1861 . . . she excels in her portrayal of a cult of mourning over which the queen presided with all the imperious intensity of a high priestess. Fair-minded, thoughtful and rich in social detail.

Rappaport uses new sources to give a vivid account of Albert's death . . . a valuable and insightful book which will change our view of Queen Victoria.

Brilliant . . . Helen Rappaport is especially good on the incompetence of the gang of medics who presided over Albert's illness.

To mark the 150th anniversary of Albert's death, Helen Rappaport looks at the circumstances leading up to it, the ritual of his funeral and obsequies, and offers new theories on what killed him.

Helen Rappaport is an historian and Russianist with a specialism in the Victorians and revolutionary Russia. Her books include Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs, No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War, and Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the death that changed the monarchy, as well as Beautiful For Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street - Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer. She lives in West Dorset.

'Rappaport uses new sources to give a vivid account of Albert's death . . . a valuable and insightful book which will change our view of Queen Victoria.' Spectator 
 
When Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, died in December 1861 the nation was paralysed with grief. 
 
His death was a catastrophe for Victoria, who not only adored her husband but had, through twenty-one years of marriage, utterly relied on him: as companion, father of their children, friend, confidant, and unofficial private secretary. Without Albert to guide and support her, the Queen retreated into a state of pathological grief which nobody could penetrate and few understood. 
 
Drawing widely on contemporary letters, diaries and memoirs, Rappaport brings new light to bear on the causes of Albert's death and tracks Victoria's mission to commemorate her husband in perpetuity. Richly compelling, this is the story of a magnificent obsession that even death could not sever.

Madame Rachel of Bond Street - Cosmetician, Con-Artist and Blackmailer

Beautiful For Ever

The scandalous tale of Madame Rachel - celebrated beautician to the rich and famous of Victorian London, con-artist and convicted blackmailer.

A remarkable story... Rappaport handles her scandalous Victorian melodrama with energy and aplomb, and produces a richly entertaining portrait of the seamy side of 19th century society

Madame Rachel's story, which has been superbly researched by Rappaport, is intriguing in itself [and] sheds a fascinating light on the ladies of Victorian society

Beautiful For Ever is one of those un-put-downable surprises that makes reading worthwhile… This book has the same mix of forensic investigation and light touch that makes Kate Summerscale’s books so interesting

Speaks volumes about vanity and Victorian attitudes to women

[Beautiful For Ever] is, blissfully, proof that there is still simply nothing quite like a good Victorian scandal. Rappaport excels again in this thoroughly researched account of Madame Rachel...this is a well-paced read that tells us something about the modern obsession with appearance while remaining deliciously Victorian at its core

Rappaport’s book takes us behind the façade of fashionable Bond Street to glimpse the seamy side of Victorian respectability

A TRUE STORY OF LIES, BEAUTY AND BLACKMAIL IN VICTORIAN LONDON 
_________________________ 
Madame Rachel had everything. 
 
A Mayfair address; the title of 'purveyor to Her Majesty the Queen'; a shop full of exotic, expensive creams and potions; and a clientele of the aristocratic, the rich - and the gullible. 
 
Little did they suspect that Madame Rachel had once been a poor fish-fryer in a disease-ridden, grubby corner of Victorian London. Her shop in New Bond Street lured her wealthy clients in their droves, enticed by the promise of eternal beauty. What they found there was a con-woman and fraudster who made a career out of lies, treachery and the desperate hopes of women wanting to be 'beautiful for ever'. 
 
Beautiful For Ever is a thrilling tale of love affairs, scandal, blackmail, high-profile court cases, suicide and fraud, with the extraordinary Madame Rachel right at the centre of it all.

Lenin in Exile

Conspirator

A revealing look at Lenin's 17 year exile and the role he played in bringing Revolution to Russia

Vivid ... Lenin's ruthless determination to seize power in October 1917 probably owed much to his awareness that he had but one chance to escape the world of paranoia and conspiracy in which he had operated for so long, and that Rappaport evokes so successfully.

Pretty much essential reading for anyone interested in Russian history

In Helen Rappaport's vivid account, we finally have a worthy counterpart to Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin

Helen Rappaport presents an exhaustive, almost week-by-week account of this period when the great Bolshevik (at times, almost the only Bolshevik) and his wife Nadya hopped from one European city to another, dodging secret policemen, living from hand to mouth and tirelessly writing, debating, organising, plotting, plotting, plotting . . .

Conspirator is the compelling story of Lenin's exile: the years in which he and his political collaborators plotted a revolution that would change 20th century history. 
 
It tells the story of Lenin in the long and difficult years leading up to the Russian Revolution, years that were spent constantly on the move in and around Europe in the company of his loyal and longsuffering wife Nadezhda Krupskaya. 
 
Conspirator strips away the arid politics of Lenin's official life and reveals the real man, as well as describing his many conflicts, personal and political, with those who shared his exile. 
 
It also looks at the loyal circle of women who unquestioningly supported Lenin, at Russian émigré lives in the enclaves of the cities in they lived and the risks taken in support of Lenin's vision by the wider network of Russian revolutionaries in the underground movement, both at home and abroad.

The Last Days of the Romanovs

Ekaterinburg

Telling the story in a compellingly new and dramatic way, Ekaterinburg brings the tragic final 13 days in the lives of the Romanovs vividly alive against the backdrop of a Russia in turmoil.

Stunning, chilling and poignant, this is how history books should be written.

That perfect but rare blend of history, sense of place, human tragedy, drama and atmosphere

Helen Rappaport brilliantly assembles the intricacies of the story in untroubling prose with some colourful re-imaginings to make this account utterly compelling.

To coincide with the anniversary (of the death's of the Romanovs), their last wretched days have been chronicled in an explosive new book. Using previously overlooked documents and witness accounts, it tells the story of the family's final moments in unprecedented detail.

An effective and engaging synthesis ... With skill and imagination [Rappaport] juxtaposes the escalating chaos outside with the day-to-day tedium of the prisoners ... The result is an intriguing personal angle...

To coincide with the anniversary (of the death's of the Romanovs), their last wretched days have been chronicled in an explosive new book. Using previously overlooked documents and witness accounts, it tells the story of the family's final moments in unprecedented detail

Skilfully weaves together the grimly repetitive routine of the doomed family with the high drama engulfing the killers ... Freshly compelling

Rappaport has succeeded in capturing a frenetic, terrifying period of modern history and showing how a brutal, but human, man and his family became victims of the pent-up fury of the people he had systematically ground underfoot

Well researched ... Helen Rappenport successfully evokes the claustrophobic atmosphere within the house

The appalling end of the last Romanov and his enchanting family is well described by Helen Rappaport ... Utilising sources only recently accessible, she traces the story from abdication to slaughter, including much fascinating detail...

Rappaport exhumes the last days of the Romanovs and, relying on archival sources and neglected memoirs, tries to offer the most up-to-date account possible... Vivid...

Eminently readable but still fastidiously researched, no compromising on scholarly or evidence-based investigation... There is a very powerful sense that you are reading the words of someone who is witnessing the sights and sounds of the place first hand, is returning to primary sources and conjuring up the atmosphere with an accomplished writer's eye. The trouble with reading any book about the Romanovs is the sure and certain knowledge of how it will end, yet despite this the book feels fresh and spell-binding ... Compelling reading

Utterly absorbing, a really good read, sensitive and balanced and surely the definitive last word on the subject

Dr Harry Shukman, Emeritus Fellow of Modern Russian History, St Antony’s College Oxford

Rappaport narrates her story in an original fashion, focusing on the final two weeks inside the Ipatiev House before the murders

Brilliantly shows how history is never simple but always enthralling when written with this style

Extraordinary and powerful ... Having uncovered enlightening new sources, Rappaport has produced a highly accessible account of the last 14 days in the lives of the former tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their children

Riveting account of turbulence, social upheaval and murder in early 20th-century Russia, which draws on new evidence uncovered in the icy, remote city where Tsar Nicholas and his family met their bloody deaths. Juxtaposing fascinating domestic details with analysis of the international political scene, the author strips away the romance of their incarceration and the mythology surrounding their murders to reveal an extraordinary human situation and its seismic worldwide repercussions

Rappaport precisely imagines those last few days ... As the pages turn quickly towards an end that is never in doubt, a picture emerges of a devout, loving and rather commonplace family

The great strength of Rappaport's book is her tight focus on the royal family's final three months in the Iaptiev House... She has told the human story, and the truly appalling tale of what man can do to man

A tragic and thrilling account ... Ekaterinburg is really a twofold triumph for Helen Rappaport ... On top of the impressive level of research that Rappaport has conducted in order to produce Ekaterinburg, she also has an excellent and engaging writing style and succeeds in maintaining the tension and mood throughout ... Gritty and compelling

A vivid and compelling account of the final thirteen days of the Romanovs, counting down to the last, tense hours of their lives. 
 
On 4 July 1918, a new commandant took control of a closely guarded house in the Russian town of Ekaterinburg. His name was Yakov Yurovsky, and his prisoners were the Imperial family: the former Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexey. Thirteen days later, at Yurovsky's command, and on direct orders from Moscow, the family was gunned down in a blaze of bullets in a basement room. 
 
This is the story of those murders, which ended 300 years of Romanov rule and began an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.

Helen Rappaport

I read The Race to Save the Romanovs in more or less in a single sitting. It’s absolutely marvellous – packed with details, beautifully paced and told me lots of things I didn’t know.

What I always love about Helen Rappaport’s books is that they appeal to the heart as well as the head. She’s a writer of great compassion.

A groundbreaking book... [which] prove[s] that, even as the centenary of their deaths by firing squad at Ekaterinburg approaches... there remain fresh angles and, crucially, unused evidence pertaining to the Romanovs.

Highly entertaining... Rappaport introduces us to a colourful array of con men, charlatans and fantasists involved in ideas to free the Romanovs... She is a vivid storyteller

Gripping... Rappaport has uncovered many missing pieces in the story, from the diplomatic wrangling over the tsar’s fate to a number of "hare-brained" rescue schemes hatched by monarchist sympathisers.

An intriguing work of investigative writing

An eye-opening, entertaining and energetically researched story

[Rappaport's] finely researched history is a devastating account of the missed and bungled opportunities to save the Romanovs.

An eye opening, entertaining and energetically researched story.

The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family

Shortlisted for the HWA Sharpe Books Non-Fiction Crown Award 
 
A work of investigative history that will completely change the way in which we see the Romanov story. Finally, here is the truth about the secret plans to rescue Russia’s last imperial family. 
 
On 17 July 1918, the whole of the Russian Imperial Family was murdered. There were no miraculous escapes. The former Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their children – Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexey – were all tragically gunned down in a blaze of bullets. 
 
Historian Helen Rappaport sets out to uncover why the Romanovs’ European royal relatives and the Allied governments failed to save them. It was not, ever, a simple case of one British King’s loss of nerve. In this race against time, many other nations and individuals were facing political and personal challenges of the highest order. 
 
In this incredible detective story, Rappaport draws on an unprecedented range of unseen sources, tracking down missing documents, destroyed papers and covert plots to liberate the family by land, sea and even sky. Through countless twists and turns, this revelatory work unpicks many false claims and conspiracies, revealing the fiercest loyalty, bitter rivalries and devastating betrayals as the Romanovs, imprisoned, awaited their fate. 
 
A remarkable new work of history from Helen Rappaport, author of Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs.

Helen Rappaport

Praise for The Race to Save the Romanovs

I read The Race to Save the Romanovs in more or less in a single sitting. It’s absolutely marvellous – packed with details, beautifully paced and told me lots of things I didn’t know.

What I always love about Helen Rappaport’s books is that they appeal to the heart as well as the head. She’s a writer of great compassion.

A groundbreaking book... [which] prove[s] that, even as the centenary of their deaths by firing squad at Ekaterinburg approaches... there remain fresh angles and, crucially, unused evidence pertaining to the ...

I read The Race to Save the Romanovs in more or less in a single sitting. It’s absolutely marvellous – packed with details, beautifully paced and told me lots of things I didn’t know.

What I always love about Helen Rappaport’s books is that they appeal to the heart as well as the head. She’s a writer of great compassion.

A groundbreaking book... [which] prove[s] that, even as the centenary of their deaths by firing squad at Ekaterinburg approaches... there remain fresh angles and, crucially, unused evidence pertaining to the ...

I read The Race to Save the Romanovs in more or less in a single sitting. It’s absolutely marvellous – packed with details, beautifully paced and told me lots of things I didn’t know.

What I always love about Helen Rappaport’s books is that they appeal to the heart as well as the head. She’s a writer of great compassion.

A groundbreaking book... [which] prove[s] that, even as the centenary of their deaths by firing squad at Ekaterinburg approaches... there remain fresh angles and, crucially, unused evidence pertaining to the ...

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