Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #234262 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
King (The Last Empress, LJ 6/15/94) has written a nonacademic work whose strength lies not in shocking revelations of how Felix Youssoupov killed Rasputin. Quite the contrary, after the official version is presented in chapter 15, King reports alternate versions in chapter 16. The real strength of this book lies in its portrayal of Youssoupov living without the trappings of wealth and power of prerevolution days, facing the reality of having plotted the deed that helped bring down imperial Russia. King carefully crafts a mosaic of one of the most enigmatic men of the Russian Revolution. The author does not seem to take advantage of, or has not found much information in, the recently opened Soviet archives. Recommended for public libraries.
Harry Willems, Kansas Lib. System, Iola
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The butler didn't do it, the scion of one of Russia's most noble families did it--murder the confidante of the czarina, the notorious Rasputin, that is. Prince Felix Youssoupov was one of the spoiled darlings of prerevolutionary St. Petersburg society, a hedonist who stumbled from one party to another. King's popular biography makes easy, compelling reading, beginning with an account of the strange life of Gregory Rasputin, who, because of his unexplained ability to control the symptoms of the czarevitch's hemophilia, came to exert enormous influence over the czarina. Rasputin grew increasingly unpopular among the high-born in the Russian capital. Enter Prince Felix, who, in his own mind, was rising to the occasion, and, with co-conspirators, hatched an assassination scheme. The effects of the deed and Youssoupov's life after the revolution are fully explored in this book general readers of Russian history will enjoy. Brad Hooper

Customer Reviews

Conjecture, Fabrication, and Pop-Psychology
King's scholarship is severely in question in this book. Many of his claims about both Rasputin and Yusupov are mixtures of conjecture, pop-psychology, and pseudo-mysticism. In some cases, they're downright libelous.

Too bad Felix Yusupov isn't alive to sue him, too. (As he did both MGM and CBS).

King makes claims that cannot in any way be substantiated, but he presents them as truth, as allegations, and as innuendoes. The book comes across as an apologists attempt to paint Rasputin in a good light and to brand Yusupov as some kind of insane sex-criminal.

King even maintains that Rasputin could actually heal!

In most of the rest, he just re-quotes other sources. I know that stealing from more than one source is research, not plagiarism, but the only new insights into the events are from King's imagination.

Read it as fiction, not as fact. Yusupov might not have told the complete truth in his memoirs, but you can't take this book as fact either.

Click http://Youssoupov.tripod.com/index.html for details.
A wonderful book that give a just account of the Prince himself. Not your ordinary biography or history book, and it reads like a detective story, unfolding the final act of murder and sustaining reader curiosity even though the victim and the murderer are known.

Beautiful book and well-written
An absolutely beautiful book with interesting photos. The book is so well-written, that the characters in pre-revolutionary Russia come to life and one gets a feeling of the "hardship" Felix and Irina endured when in exile. It is astounding that a "mad" monk could have such an influence over the tsarina and her imperial court. Personally, I admire Prince Felix Youssoupov for taking such a drastic action in those troubled times. After reading this book, I bought his book "Lost Splendour" which gives generally a very good impression of what life was like in pre-revolutionary Russia and there are some funny chapters in it as well. It ends with the tragic exile from Yalta sailing towards the unknown.