Massie, Robert K., 1929-

Robert Kinloch Massie III was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1929. He was a graduate of Yale University (1950) and Oxford University (1952), where he was a Rhodes scholar. Massie began his literary career as a journalist writing for Collier's (1955-1956), Newsweek (1956-1962), and the Saturday Evening Post (1962-1965), and later taught at Princeton University and Tulane University. Massie's interest in the Romanov family stemmed from his personal research on hemophilia, a hereditary and incurable blood disease that afflicted his young son Robert IV, as it had Alexei Romanov, who had inherited it through his mother, the Empress Alexandra. Massie's first work in Russian history, Nicholas and Alexandra (New York: Atheneum, 1967) was followed by Peter the Great: His Life and World (New York: Knopf, 1980), and The Romanovs: The Final Chapter (New York: Random House, 1995).

From the guide to the Robert K. Massie papers relating to Nicholas and Alexandra, 1964-1968, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)