Ruth P. Dawson is Professor Emerita of Women's Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, UK. She is the author of The Contested Quill: Literature by Women in Germany, 1770-1800 (2002).

Ruth P. Dawson’s meticulously researched and copiously illustrated study of Catherine the Great as a pathbreaking modern female celebrity traces the emergence of stardom and fandom during the eighteenth century. It has implications for transnational history and politics, ideas of gender and sexuality, nascent feminism, imperial self-fashioning and branding, not to mention evolving international communications and the mediated, mutual interplay of lay and aristocratic culture in the period. It’s a fascinating examination of a famous but understudied figure at the center of Enlightenment European life and the popular imagination.

• List of Images1. From Fame to Celebrity in the Eighteenth CenturyPart 1 - Celebrity Ingredients2. Celebrity-Making Coup of 1762: The Crucial Role of Story3. More Celebrity Ingredients: Scandal and Engrossing Coup Backstories4. Media Workers and Their Commodities in Words and Images5. Fans and Anti-fans for a Commodity Empress6. The Star as Contributing Subject and Living ObjectPart 2 - Engaging Themes, Sustaining Celebrity7. Woman Philosopher on the Throne8. Consuming Catherine II: Gender and Wealth9. Disconcerting Mother of Her Country: Gender and Power Again10. Empress of the OtherPart 3 - Transgressions Accruing and Secrets Revealed11. Final Eight Years: Reassessment and Satirical Critique12. Still Relishing the Failed Marriage, the Coup, and the Deadly Aftermath13. The Lovers: Dabs of Fiction, Grains of Truth, Gobs of Scandal14. Celebrity after DeathBibliographyIndex

Ruth P. Dawson is Professor Emerita of Women's Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, UK. She is the author of The Contested Quill: Literature by Women in Germany, 1770-1800 (2002).

Ruth P. Dawson’s meticulously researched and copiously illustrated study of Catherine the Great as a pathbreaking modern female celebrity traces the emergence of stardom and fandom during the eighteenth century. It has implications for transnational history and politics, ideas of gender and sexuality, nascent feminism, imperial self-fashioning and branding, not to mention evolving international communications and the mediated, mutual interplay of lay and aristocratic culture in the period. It’s a fascinating examination of a famous but understudied figure at the center of Enlightenment European life and the popular imagination.

• List of Images1. From Fame to Celebrity in the Eighteenth CenturyPart 1 - Celebrity Ingredients2. Celebrity-Making Coup of 1762: The Crucial Role of Story3. More Celebrity Ingredients: Scandal and Engrossing Coup Backstories4. Media Workers and Their Commodities in Words and Images5. Fans and Anti-fans for a Commodity Empress6. The Star as Contributing Subject and Living ObjectPart 2 - Engaging Themes, Sustaining Celebrity7. Woman Philosopher on the Throne8. Consuming Catherine II: Gender and Wealth9. Disconcerting Mother of Her Country: Gender and Power Again10. Empress of the OtherPart 3 - Transgressions Accruing and Secrets Revealed11. Final Eight Years: Reassessment and Satirical Critique12. Still Relishing the Failed Marriage, the Coup, and the Deadly Aftermath13. The Lovers: Dabs of Fiction, Grains of Truth, Gobs of Scandal14. Celebrity after DeathBibliographyIndex

Ruth P. Dawson is Professor Emerita of Women's Studies at University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, UK. She is the author of The Contested Quill: Literature by Women in Germany, 1770-1800 (2002).

Ruth P. Dawson’s meticulously researched and copiously illustrated study of Catherine the Great as a pathbreaking modern female celebrity traces the emergence of stardom and fandom during the eighteenth century. It has implications for transnational history and politics, ideas of gender and sexuality, nascent feminism, imperial self-fashioning and branding, not to mention evolving international communications and the mediated, mutual interplay of lay and aristocratic culture in the period. It’s a fascinating examination of a famous but understudied figure at the center of Enlightenment European life and the popular imagination.

• List of Images1. From Fame to Celebrity in the Eighteenth CenturyPart 1 - Celebrity Ingredients2. Celebrity-Making Coup of 1762: The Crucial Role of Story3. More Celebrity Ingredients: Scandal and Engrossing Coup Backstories4. Media Workers and Their Commodities in Words and Images5. Fans and Anti-fans for a Commodity Empress6. The Star as Contributing Subject and Living ObjectPart 2 - Engaging Themes, Sustaining Celebrity7. Woman Philosopher on the Throne8. Consuming Catherine II: Gender and Wealth9. Disconcerting Mother of Her Country: Gender and Power Again10. Empress of the OtherPart 3 - Transgressions Accruing and Secrets Revealed11. Final Eight Years: Reassessment and Satirical Critique12. Still Relishing the Failed Marriage, the Coup, and the Deadly Aftermath13. The Lovers: Dabs of Fiction, Grains of Truth, Gobs of Scandal14. Celebrity after DeathBibliographyIndex