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Cleopatra
Histories, Dreams and Distortions
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Check link for latest rating. ( 182 ratings, 23 reviews)
Brief Description
Brilliant and discursive Antonia Fraser, Sunday Times Hughes-Hallett's exemplary reappraisal … throws a searching light on two thousand years of male erotic fantasy Joan Smith, New Statesman Winner of the FAWCETT PRIZE and EMILY TOTH AWARD In the 2,000 years since her death, Cleopatra has been...
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Cleopatra
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'Brilliant and discursive' Antonia Fraser, Sunday Times 'Hughes-Hallett's exemplary reappraisal … throws a searching light on two thousand years of male erotic fantasy' Joan Smith, New Statesman Winner of the FAWCETT PRIZE and EMILY TOTH AWARD
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Description
Brilliant and discursive Antonia Fraser, Sunday Times
Hughes-Hallett's exemplary reappraisal … throws a searching light on two thousand years of male erotic fantasy Joan Smith, New Statesman
Winner of the FAWCETT PRIZE and EMILY TOTH AWARD
In the 2,000 years since her death, Cleopatra has been recreated over and over again by poets, artists, and filmmakers, each time in a form that fits the prejudices, anxieties and yearnings of the age that produced it. To Chaucer, she was the model of a good wife, while to Cecil B. DeMille, she was ‘the wickedest woman in history’.
In this revised edition of Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s award-winning cultural history, the real Cleopatra – one of the most powerful women in the ancient world – is skilfully revealed alongside a legion of imaginary counterparts and the sexual, racial, and political messages they carry.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780008781323
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 26 February 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 38.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 420g
Pages: 464
About the Author
Lucy Hughes-Hallett is the author of The Pike, a biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction, the Costa Biography Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Paddy Power Political Biography of the Year Award. Her other books are Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions which was published in 1990 to wide acclaim, and Heroes: Saviours, Traitors and Supermen, published in 2004, which garnered similar praise. Cleopatra won the Fawcett Prize and the Emily Toth Award. Lucy Hughes-Hallett is also a respected critic who has reviewed for all the major British newspapers, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.
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