13 MARCH 1926, Page 39

Whatever we may think of Catherine the Great's conduct with

her entourage, Miss Katherine Anthony has made an interesting book of Catherine the Great (Cape, 12s. 6d.), and a book, moreover, as free as its subject allows of the ugly tittle-tattle of eighteenth-century Russia. The great qualities of the brilliant Empress, rather than her obvious defects, are emphasized, and the result is a sane historical sketch, " for adults only," of course.