Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195255 in Books
• Published on: 1985-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Customer Reviews

A Grand Book for a Grand Duchess!
It was a great pleasure for me to read Peter Kurth's book. I have read most of the books written about the Anna Anderson/Anastasia affair and I find Mr. Kurth's book to be the best due to the extensive amount of research he has performed. Although the DNA "evidence" has concluded that Anna Anderson Manahan was a polish factory worker...I still believe that she was indeed Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna Romanov. I would highly recommend Peter Kurth's book to anyone interested in this subject because it provides an opportunity to learn about all of the other overwhelming evidence in Mrs. Manahan's favor that contradicts the DNA results.

A very thorough investigation but slightly biased
This book is probably the most comprehensive collection of information on Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia. The book begins with what is known of Anderson's early life and continues until her death, spanning several decades, two continents and many court battles.

However, I felt that the book leaned too heavily on the evidence that supported Anderson's claim. From the mystery's beginning until its conclusive end, there was always much evidence against the possibility on Anderson being Anastasia. Some is included in the book, but not dwelt upon as much as some of the other evidence.

The updated section on the DNA testing is fascinating and very well written and should prove once and for all the claimant's identity, although some doubters still remain.

Even though the mystery does conclude at the end of the book this is still a fascinating read, especially for anyone interested in Russian or royal history.

Baffled and Bothered
I read this book in the knowledge that the case of Fraullein Unbekannt/Anna Anderson is now meant to represent the story of the Twentieth Century's most famous impostor. So I expected I would easily be able to spot the holes in Anna Anderson's "story" and see the author's belief in her identity as little more then mawkish sentimentality. And his prose ebbs and flows ~ it is, at times, grating. Yet, after reading the extraordinarily convincing case he gradually presents, I simply was, and am, baffled. I am expected to be dismissive of this apparently "obsolete" book in the light of some negative DNA results, but I refuse to be. Besides, for me, the results of the DNA make it all the more mezmerizing. Of course, I do not want to believe the DNA results, any way. I try to remember A) that DNA is NOT 100 percent foolproof, and B) that it is possible (if relatively unlikely) that somebody, somehow, perpetrated some kind of "switch" on the samples tested. Yet, if I accept that the DNA was not tampered with, and moreover constitutes the best form of scientific identification ("proof") that mankind has on offer, then a huge gaping question remains: How did she do it? How could so many people simply have been so WRONG? The scientists, the graphologists, the friends and (some) relatives of the authentic Grand Duchess, the author of this book even, all of whom believed Anna was Anastasia? Has anybody made any attempt to reconcile the array of convincing evidence on hand ASIDE from DNA, or explain away the knowledge Anna had of the Romanov family, evidence which suggests she was indeed who she said she was? Her opponents, cited in the book, were fond of saying she was coached in her knowledge by "Russian monarchists", but how? How could Russian monarchists ~ most of whom never knew the Imperial Family ~ have had the knowledge Anna Anderson had? Am I really expected to believe that somebody falsely claiming to be a Russian princess just happened to be lucky enough to have so much evidence to prove it ~ identical hand~writing, ears matching at "seventeen anatomical points", scars such as one would expect to find on the survivor of a massacre like Ekaterinburg? It was furthermore a stroke of genius luck that Anna should claim to be Anastasia seventy years before the Grand Duchess's body was proven to be missing from the Romanov burial site. I was, in short, deeply impressed by Kurth's biography, but far more deeply baffled.