In CLEOPATRA: A Life, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff takes on one of the greatest figures in history: Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt. Schiff separates fact from fiction to illuminate the life of one of the most intriguing women of all time.

History remembers Cleopatra as an irresistible seductress, but she was also a canny political strategist, a brilliant manager, and a tough negotiator. As Schiff states, “Cleopatra stood at one of the most dangerous intersections in history: that of women and power.” We have not seen a more influential woman since—much less one who happened to be a single mother and, by a wide margin, the wealthiest person in her world.

Schiff is the author of Véra(Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.