Most Popular Books by Stacy Schiff

In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career ● Michael Douglas stars in Franklin, premiering April 12 only on Apple TV+ In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America''s experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin''s most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin''s life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country''s bid for independence.

Traces the life of the French author and pilot, depicts his complex personality, and looks at his contributions to the war effort.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister''s daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff''s account of this fantastical story -- the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the award–winning author of The Revolutionary and The Witches comes “an elegantly nuanced portrait of [Vladimir Nabokov’s] wife, showing us just how pivotal Nabokov’s marriage was to his hermetic existence and how it indelibly shaped his work.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF ESQUIRE’S 50 BEST BIOGRAPHIES OF ALL TIME “Monumental.”—The Boston Globe “Utterly romantic.”—New York magazine “Deeply moving.”—The Seattle Times Stacy Schiff brings to shimmering life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time: Vladimir Nabokov, émigré author of Lolita; Pale Fire; and Speak, Memory, and his beloved wife, Véra. Nabokov wrote his books first for himself, second for his wife, and third for no one at all. “Without my wife,” he once noted, “I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” Set in prewar Europe and postwar America, spanning much of the twentieth century, the story of the Nabokovs’ fifty-two-year marriage reads as vividly as a novel. Véra, both beautiful and brilliant, is its outsized heroine—a woman who loves as deeply and intelligently as did the great romantic heroines of Austen and Tolstoy. Stacy Schiff''s Véra is a triumph of the biographical form.

Biografa câștigătoare a Premiului Pulitzer aduce la viață una dintre cele mai fascinante femei din istoria lumii: Cleopatra, ultima regină a Egiptului. Palatul ei strălucea fiind împodobit cu onix, granate și aur, dar mustea de intrigi politice și sexuale. Peste toate acestea, Cleopatra era un strateg viclean și un negociator priceput. Deși a trăit mai puțin de 40 de ani, a retrasat contururile lumii antice. A fost căsătorită de două ori, de fiecare dată cu un frate. A purtat un violent război civil cu primul, cât ambii erau încă adolescenți. Pe cel de al doilea l-a otrăvit. În cele din urmă, a scăpat și de o soră ambițioasă; incestul și asasinatele erau specialitatea familiei. Din câte se pare, Cleo - patra a avut relații intime cu doar doi bărbați. Cu toate acestea, aceștia au fost Iulius Caesar și Marcus Antonius, doi dintre cei mai cunoscuți romani ai vremurilor lor. Ambii erau căsătoriți cu alte femei. Cleopatra a avut un copil cu Caesar și, după asasinarea acestuia, alți trei cu prote - jatul lui. Era deja cel mai puternic conducător din zona mediteraneană, iar relația cu Antonius i-a confirmat statutul de cea mai influentă fe - meie a epocii. Cei doi vor încerca să fondeze un imperiu, într-o alianță care le va aduce sfârșitul. Faimoasă înainte de a deveni notorie, Cleopatra a intrat în istorie din motive greșite. Shakespeare și Shaw i-au pus cu - vinte în gură, Michelangelo, Tiepolo și Elizabeth Taylor i-au pus un chip. Pe traseu, personalitatea și drama circumstanțelor Cleopatrei s-au pierdut. Întorcân - du-se la sursele clasice, Stacy Schiff separă cu îndrăzneală faptele de ficțiune pentru a o sal - va pe regina fascinantă a cărei moarte a adus cu ea o nouă ordine mondială. Bo - gată în detalii, epică în scop, Schiff real - izează o reconstituire profund originală a unei vieți fascinante.

This "glorious" revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize winner is about the most essential Founding Father (Ron Chernow)—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool available to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Samuel Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. In The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies. Arresting, original, and deliriously dramatic, this is a long-overdue chapter in the history of our nation. ONE OF WALL STREET JOURNAL''S 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF LOS ANGELES TIMES TOP 5 NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA''S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 And named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by The New Yorker, TIME, Oprah Daily, USA Today, New York Magazine, Air Mail, Boston Globe, and more! "A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.” —Ron Chernow "A beautifully crafted, invaluable biography…Schiff ingeniously connects the past to our present and future, underscoring the lessons of Adams while reclaiming our nation’s self-evident truths at a moment when we seemed to have forgotten them." —Oprah Daily

Six months after America declared her independence, Congress dispatched Benjamin Franklin to France to solicit aid and arms for the upcoming fight. He was seventy years old, possessed of the most rudimentary French and without any diplomatic training. But this most remarkable of envoys, who had in previous incarnations been a printer, a postmaster, a fixer, a colonial agent and who had tamed lightning, was also among the most famous men in the world. In his eight Parisian years he worked harder than he ever had in his life, charmed the French, outwitted the British spies, and stirred a passion for a republic in an absolute monarchy. It was largely through his charisma and negotiating skill that France bankrolled the American Revolution. Stacy Schiff tells a tale of international intrigue entirely from primary sources, working from a host of diplomatic archives, family papers, spy reports, and records of the French foreign service. From her pages emerges an intimate portrait of a brilliant man, as well as a sense of the fragility and improvisation of his country''s bid for independence.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the award–winning author of The Revolutionary and The Witches comes “an elegantly nuanced portrait of [Vladimir Nabokov’s] wife, showing us just how pivotal Nabokov’s marriage was to his hermetic existence and how it indelibly shaped his work.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Monumental.”—The Boston Globe “Utterly romantic.”—New York magazine “Deeply moving.”—The Seattle Times Stacy Schiff brings to shimmering life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time: Vladimir Nabokov, émigré author of Lolita; Pale Fire; and Speak, Memory, and his beloved wife, Véra. Nabokov wrote his books first for himself, second for his wife, and third for no one at all. “Without my wife,” he once noted, “I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” Set in prewar Europe and postwar America, spanning much of the twentieth century, the story of the Nabokovs’ fifty-two-year marriage reads as vividly as a novel. Véra, both beautiful and brilliant, is its outsized heroine—a woman who loves as deeply and intelligently as did the great romantic heroines of Austen and Tolstoy. Stacy Schiff''s Véra is a triumph of the biographical form.

Six months after America declared her independence, Congress dispatched Benjamin Franklin to France to solicit aid and arms for the upcoming fight. This work tells a tale of international intrigue and from it emerges a portrait of a brilliant man, as well as a sense of the fragility and improvisation of his country''s bid for independence.

Um dos mais sombrios episódios do passado norte-americano revelado de forma emocionante por uma das mais aclamadas escritoras da atualidade 1692, baía de Massachussets, Nova Inglaterra. A puritana aldeia de Salem assistiu à execução de catorze mulheres, cinco homens e dois cachorros – todos acusados de bruxaria. A feitiçaria se materializou em janeiro, o primeiro enforcamento ocorreu em junho, tudo terminou em setembro. Depois dos julgamentos, fez-se um silêncio crivado de culpa. Com base em meticulosa pesquisa, a renomada jornalista Stacy Schiff, vencedora do Pulitzer, reconstitui com precisão histórica e prosa vibrante os acontecimentos daquele ano sombrio e o surto coletivo que desencadeou o drama das bruxas de Salem. Um retrato em que Schiff traz à baila as ansiedades da América do Norte dos primeiros tempos para compará-las, brilhantemente, com as de hoje. Em nossa época de redes sociais, inimigos invisíveis e intolerância às diferenças, esta história sobre o obscurantismo religioso faz mais sentido que nunca. Um capítulo distópico do passado norte-americano que não devemos nunca esquecer – e muito menos repetir. "Magistral... Stacy Schiff reconstrói detalhadamente não apenas os acontecimentos de 1692, mas o mundo que os criou." The Los Angeles Times "Um thriller psicológico opressivo, forense." The Times "Stacy Schiff em grande forma, dando a um evento histórico o máximo de vida, mistério e tragédia como a melhor das romancistas." Vanity Fair "Sua pesquisa é impecável; nenhum outro escritor foi tão a fundo." The New York Review of Books

Die glänzend erzählte Lebensgeschichte der legendären ägyptischen Königin Kleopatra VII., letzter weiblicher Pharao Ägyptens, ist heute hinter Mythen, übler Nachrede und märchenhafter Schönheit verborgen. Stacy Schiff , Pulitzer-Preisträgerin, zeigt in ihrer Biografie dank intensiver Recherche und neuer Auswertung antiker Quellen nicht nur die laszive Verführerin und das intrigante Machtweib, sondern enthüllt eine außerordentlich starke Herrscherin – selbstbewusst, versiert in politischem Kalkül, diplomatisch und visionär. Detailfülle und Mut zum zugespitzten historischen Urteil, sprachliche Eleganz und provokantspritzige Porträts der mächtigen Mit- und Gegenspieler an Kleopatras Seite versetzen den Leser ins alte Reich am Nil mit seinem weltläufigen Charme und seiner machtpolitischen Unerbittlichkeit.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and--after his murder--three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra''s supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff ''s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

When they declared their independence in 1776, the American colonies were without money, munitions or gunpowder. Amid great secrecy Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France to solicit aid & arms for the struggle to come. Franklin was 70 years old, without any diplomatic training, & knew only rudimentary French. But, he proved a brilliant, charismatic negotiator. The ingenious Franklin -- who had previously distinguished himself as printer, postmaster, scientist & colonial agent in London -- matched wits daily with intrepid spies, eager opportunists & hostile colleagues. He persuaded an absolute monarchy to support a nascent republic. ¿Brings Franklin¿s Parisian adventure vividly to life in this tale of international intrigue.¿ Illustrations.