Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter

Teffi was one of twentieth century Russia's most celebrated authors. Born Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya in 1872, she came to be admired by an impressive range of people - from Tsar Nicholas II to Lenin - and her popularity was such that sweets and perfume were named after her. She visited Tolstoy when she was 13 to haggle with him about the ending of War and Peace and Rasputin tried (and utterly failed) to seduce her. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 she was exiled and lived out her days in t...