My great appreciation to the dance historians Lynn Garafola, professor of dance at Barnard College, and Tim Scholl, chair of Russian Language, Literature, and Culture at Oberlin College, for their time in reviewing the novel and for offering their insights and expertise on both the period and the person of Mathilde Kschessinska.
I would also like to thank my editor, Courtney Hodell, for her brilliant work on this manuscript; her able and courteous assistant, Mark Krotov; my agent, Sandy Dijkstra, in all ways fabulous; and the Dijkstra Agency’s most wonderful Elise Capron and Andrea Cavallaro.
And to my family, most especially my husband, my gratitude always.
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2010 by Adrienne Sharp
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sharp, Adrienne.
The true memoirs of Little K / Adrienne Sharp.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-374-20730-4
1. Kshesinskaia, Matil’da Feliksovna, 1872–1971—Fiction. 2. Ballerinas—Fiction. 3. Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1868–1918—Fiction. 4. Russia—History—Nicholas II, 1894–1917—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.H3432T78 2010
813’.54—dc22
2010010289