About Helen Rappaport
Helen Rappaport is the author of a number of historical works. She studied Russian at Leeds University and is a specialist in Russian and Victorian history. Her book The Romanov Sisters was a New York Times bestseller. She was an actress who appeared on British TV and in films until the early 1990s, and then focused on writing. In 2003 she discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Mary Seacole that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, sparking a long investigation into Seacole's life and career. A fluent Russian speaker and a specialist in Russian history and nineteenth-century women's history, she has become well known as a Russian translator in the theater and has translated all seven of Anton Chekhov's plays.