Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie is a 584-page hardcover published by Atheneum, New York.  Stated first edition of 1967.  The dust jacket is price clipped, shows shelf wear and small closed tears along the edges.  Inside, the pages are clean and unmarked. Book Summary History offers few eras richer in drama than the last years of Imperial Russia.  Tsar Nicholas II, ruler of one sixth of the earth and more than 120 million Russians, presided over a glittering world of huge palaces, lavish balls, and incomparable luxury.  For Nicholas and his golden-haired wife Alexandra--Queen Victoria's favorite granddaughter, the happiest moment of their reign was the long-awaited birth, on August 12, 1904, of a male heir, their only son, Alexis.  Yet just six weeks late fate crushed the Imperial parents with a ruthless blow.  Seemingly without cause, Alexis began to hemorrhage from the navel.  The diagnosis did not take long:  from his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, the tiny Tsarevich had inherited a dread disease, hemophilia.   In despair over her son's condition, Alexandra placed his fate, and the fate of her husband and his empire, in the hands of Rasputin, the bizarre Siberian mystagogue whose hypnotic blue eyes brought Alexis relief from pain.  It was Rasputin who continually goaded Alexandra into resisting the clamor for reforms in Russia's government.  In 1905 the Russian people had achieved a partial revolution.  And as World War I developed, the nation demanded not revolution but a share of responsibility in winning the victory.  But, swayed by Rasputin, Alexandra passionately objected to any further erosion of the Tsar's power.  Nicholas, reacting as husband and father as well as Tsar, gave way to her.  By denying every cry for responsible government, Nicholas made revolution and the eventual triumph of Lenin inevitable. Robert K. Massie has read all the diaries, letters and memoirs left by those who played major roles in this stormy and tragic epoch, and has woven together the first detailed, intimate account of an Imperial family whose struggle with disease and the disintegration of a dynasty and an empire was to have momentous consequences for the entire world.  The book is brimming with absorbing descriptions of weddings, parties, family outings, yachts, costumes.  A score of vivid personalities are depicted, including Rasputin, a wandered, a satyr, and one of the most compelling figures in Russia's extraordinary history. Dominating the story, however, is the Russian Imperial family:  the gentle, charming Nicholas and the beautiful, tormented Alexandra; their four unspoiled daughters; and the youthful Alexis, whose suffering never dimmed his gay and lively intelligence.  Their fall from the pinnacle of earthly power to imprisonment and death is the most moving of tragedies. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:  67-24627