Scenes from the Life of Cleopatra

This Excellent historical novel by British-born writer Mary Butts is the story one of the world's most legendary women. Butts presents Cleopatra and her story in a completely new light. Eschewing the popular notions of Cleopatra as presented by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Shaw, in which Cleopatra is presented either as a tender martyr or a mindless hussy, Butts presents the reader with a figure of a great ruler, who had to choose her lovers in order that her kingdom could survive, but who recognized throughout the danger and potential of those choices.