Frederick the Great

The Prussian king Frederick II (17121786) is perhaps best known for successfully defending his tiny country against the three great European powers of France, Austria, and Russia during the Seven Years' War (17561763), a feat that allowed Great Britain to limit its engagement on the Continent and emerge as the world's leading colonial power, as summed up in William Pitt's famous claim that "America was won in Germany." But in his youth, tormented by a spectacularly cruel and dyspeptic father, this future military genius was drawn first to the flute and French poetry, and throughout his long life counted nothing more important than the company of good friends and great wits. This was especially evident in his longstanding, loving, and vexing relationship with Voltaire. An absolute ruler allergic to pomp, a nonhunter who wore no spurs, a reformer of great zeal who maintained complete freedom of the press and religion and cleaned up his country's courts, a fiscal conservative and patron of the arts, the builder of the rococo palace Sanssouci and improver of the farmers' lot, maddening to his rivals but beloved by nearly everyone he met, Frederick was-notwithstanding a penchant for merciless teasing-arguably the most humane of enlightened despots. In Frederick the Great, a richly entertaining biography of one of the eighteenth century's most fascinating figures, Nancy Mitford's trademark wit and charm find the ideal subject.

Nancy Mitford (1904–1973) was born into the British aristocracy and, by her own account, brought up without an education, except in riding and French. She managed a London bookshop during the Second World War, then moved to Paris, where she began to write her celebrated and successful novels, among them The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, about the foibles of the English upper class. Mitford was also the author of four biographies: Madame de Pompadour (1954), Voltaire in Love (1957), The Sun King (1966), and Frederick the Great (1970)—all available as NYRB classics. In 1967 Mitford moved from Paris to Versailles, where she lived until her death from Hodgkin’s disease.

Liesl Schillinger is a journalist, critic, and translator. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and has written on literature, culture, theater, politics, and travel for many publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Daily Beast, and The Independent on Sunday. Among her translations are The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas (fils) and Every Day, Every Hour by Nataša Dragnić. Her illustrated book of neologisms, Wordbirds, will be published in October 2013.