THE ROMANCE OF CATHERINE AND POTEMKIN By Jerome Dreifuss
This very American production (Jarrolds, I2S. 6d.) is claimed by its publishers to be the first to be able to analyse the relationship between Potemkin- and Catherine the Great "with, complete authority," since its author "has had first access" to the correspondence between the two recently released for publication by the Soviet 'authorities. If Mr. Dreifuss did indeed have " first access "to this correspondence, he is 'hot the first to publish the fruits of 'his Opportunity ; it was drawn on by the author of a study of Potemkin which appeared in English some eight months ago. It is difficult in any event to know why anyone thought it necessary to drag in questions of scholarship in introducing a book such as this. Mr. Dreifuss has a .fertile imagination and a colloquial style, and such merits as his book possesses are frankly those of a competently turned popular romantic biography. The names cf important figures in his story are consistently misspelled ; and the extent of the author's familiarity with the politics of other States can be judged from his reference, which recurs, to "the Sublime Porte, Ruler of Turkey."
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