Product Description

She was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and railed against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away preconceptions as old as her Roman enemies, Joyce Tyldesley uses all her skills as an Egyptologist to give us this magnificent biography.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161514 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"'Tyldesley's strength has always been her storytelling, and here she is on top form.' Sunday Telegraph 'A very readable account of the life of Cleopatra VII, and one that goes some way to redress the way in which she is often viewed... Intriguing insights into life and society in the Egypt of the Ptolemies.' THES 'Magnificent... strips away preconceptions to provide a rich, absorbing picture of a country and its Egyptian Queen.' Belfast Telegraph"

Sunday Telegraph
`Tyldesley's strength has always been her storytelling, and here she is on top form.'

About the Author
Joyce Tyldesley's books include acclaimed biographies of Rameses the Great, and the Queens Hatchepsut and Nefertiti, and of Egypt: How a Lost Civilization was Rediscovered, which accompanied a major BBC television series. They have been published all over the world. She lives in Bolton, Lancashire.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating, witty and detailed biography
Joyce Tyldesley's 'Cleopatra' is a remarkable book; highly readable, clever and humorous, the biography offers a wealth of information and detail on Cleopatra and her world.

The book is structured in a reassuringly chronological manner. Tyldesley begins with Cleopatra's turbulent accession to the throne, moves through her careful negotiation of famine, drought and opposition, and ends with her death and legacy. Her much-discussed liaisons with Caesar, Pompey and Marc Antony also merit significant attention.

Throughout the course of the biography, Tyldesley sustains the interest by examining all the most famous myths about Cleopatra, and then systematically authenticating or debunking them. We discover how far we can trust the accounts of Cleopatra rolling herself theatrically from carpets, or dissolving priceless pearls in wine. We find out how likely it was that the queen was actually hook-nosed and prominent-chinned, and that far from being careless and flippant, she was shrewd and politically astute.

The most fascinating part of the story for me, having studied Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, was the chapter that dealt with their famous relationship. Anyone who knows the play at all would find the explanation of Antony's scandalous past, for example, extremely enlightening. It is also interesting to see how far Shakespeare adapted and manipulated the legend for the stage. I would therefore recommend this book to anyone studying Shakespeare's play - or any play about Cleopatra, for that matter - as an excellent study companion.

Really, though, this biography might appeal to anyone, simply because Cleopatra is such an intriguing and mysterious figure in history. In spite of its somewhat scholarly tone in places, one does not have to be an egyptologist to find 'Cleopatra' interesting and surprising.

cleopatra the last queen of egypt.
i find this book very interesting and gripping. would recomend this book to any one who is very heavily in to egyptology.