This splendidly illustrated volume evokes the world of pre-revolutionary Russia on every page and tells the story of the last Romanovs as never before. Peter Kurth, author of Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson, recreates the private life of the imperial family with great clarity and new insights. He begins the story in 1913, a year of celebrations marking 300 years of Romanov rule, but also the last year before the onset of the Great War, which would bring a shattering end to the dynasty.

From there he returns to the childhoods of Nicholas and Alexandra and follows them through their courtship, marriage and coronation to the Siberian cellar where their lives ended.

The narrative is effectively complemented by archival images from the imperial family's personal albums and private collections, many of them never before published, matched with present-day color photographs of the palaces and places the Romanovs knew. A special visual section, The Imperial Year, documents the family in their palace outside St.

Petersburg, at their seaside retreat in the Crimea, on board the royal yacht in the Gulf of Finland and visiting their hunting lodge at Spala, deep in the forests of Poland.

Photographer Peter Christopher also followed the path of the imperial family, and his color photographs range from the splendors of Tsarskoe Selo to the remains of "The House of Special Purpose" in Ekaterinburg. The many questions still surrounding the murders that took place in that house are examined by Peter Kurth, and in the book's final chapter he details the recent discovery of the Romanov bones and the DNA tests used to determine their authenticity.

The fascinating saga of Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Anastasia, the tsar's youngest daughter, is also included along with a candid picture of the Russian aristocracy in exile.