Sex and the City of Ladies: Rewriting History with Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine the Great

The bestselling author and historian Lisa Hilton picks up the mythical ‘City of Ladies’ where the medieval writer Christine de Pisan left off, continuing a conversation about gender and greatness that began more than six hundred years ago. In 1405 Christine de Pisan took up the pen to defend her maligned sex. Her book, The City of Ladies, was built around preserving women's reputations from the slights and misunderstandings of history. In it the author is visited by three spirits – Justice, Rectitude and Reason – who guide her in sifting through countless lives, in search of worthy citizens. Over 600 years later, the historian and novelist Lisa Hilton picks up the book and promptly falls asleep, only to be visited by three great women from history: Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine the Great. And they aren’t happy. Having found themselves barred from the original ‘City of Ladies’, they want to know why. And isn’t it time, they ask, for a new author to take up the pen? What follows is a reassessment of the past, in which deeds and reputations, rumours and reality are held up to the light, and history is wrested back from the distortions of misogyny. Hilton's Sex and the City of Ladies is a top-tier historical fiction that presents a pastiche of stories from the Renaissance era. This short yet impactful collection of narratives challenges the traditional views of gender and greatness, making it a must-read literary adaptation. For fans of Helen Castor (She-Wolves), Alison Weir (Queens of the Conquest), Tracy Borman (Elizabeth's Women), Janina Ramirez (Beowulf), and Susan Higginbotham (The Queen of Last Hopes).