An important new archive of letters, postcards, photographs, and other unpublished Romanov documents were used by the author to be able to write the first biography of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. Sister of Nicholas II, she was born in 1875 and brought up in the wealth and splendour of the Russian royal family. Her father was Alexander II, and she married her cousin Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich in 1894. They had seven children, among them her only daughter, Irina. Irina married Prince Felix Youssupov, who was one of the ringleaders in the successful attempt to murder Rasputin. During the Revolution, Xenia and her family fled from Russia in fear. Her husband went to France and died there in 1933, while she and her children made a life in England, where she died in 1960. Her life contains the elements of the Romanov dynasty: wealth, tragedy and exile.