Catherine the Great’s memoirs, written in French and not published until after her death, offer a vivid and remarkably candid account of her life: her childhood in a minor German principality, her marriage to the unstable Tsar Peter III, her navigation of the dangerous Russian court, and her path to power. They are the self-presentation of one of history’s most formidable rulers — shrewd, witty, and keenly aware of how she wished to be remembered.
An indispensable primary source for the history of 18th-century Russia and a compulsively readable autobiography, this public-domain text is freely available as an EPUB download.