4 APRIL 1981, page 24

First Lady

Ronald Hingley I sabel in the Age of Catherine the Great ,sabel de Madariaga (Weidenfeld and Nicolson pp. 698, £20) This is an exhaustive study of a key period in Russia's......

Memsahib

Caroline Moorehead Flora Annie Steel: Novelist of India Violet Powell (Heinemann pp. 170, £8.50) Flora Steel made the right decision when she agreed to marry a man she barely......

• ■••■••••••"fiction

No jokes Paul Ableman Cities of the Red Night William S. 13 t 11.roughs (John Calder pp. 332, £9.95) Twenty years ago, William Burroughs pub,lished the most brilliant satire in......