Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
Elibron Classics / Adamant Media Corporation [Published Date: No date listed]. 5.5 x 8.25". This Elibron Classics Replica Edition is an unabridged facsimile of the edition published by Cassell and Co., Ltd. London , in 1914. Paper covers, viii, List of photogravures, 408 pp.
In good condition. Glossy pictorial paper covers have bumping and creasing to edges and corners and light overall scuffing with a bit of peeling to the paper at the corner tips. Light creasing to spine, but binding is still nice and tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. [From (original) Publisher's Note] SOME thirty years ago considerable interest was aroused the publication, in the Nouvelle Revue, of Letters dealing with the Society of the different European capitals. These letters were by Count Paul Vassili. They were clever, amusing, and, it must be owned, rather ill-natured letters. People wondered at the extraordinary amount of truth which they contained, at the secrets they revealed. The real name of their author to this day has never been disclosed ; yet Count Vassili existed. He held an important post at the Russian Court, he had travelled widely, and everywhere had been welcomed as befitted his rank in the world. Cynical, intelligent, and wonderfully observant of everything that went on around him, his greatest interest in life was to commit to the leaves of a diary all that he saw or heard. That diary, which stretches from the time of the Crimean War to the present year, it was his intention to publish before he died. Alas, death came too soon. The Count passed away a few months ago. Nevertheless, the volumes which contained this diary became accessible, and their contents are now given to the public with the conviction that they will be read with the same interest that always attended the writings of Count Vassili. At the same tune, we would warn the reader that the present volume is not historical, but merely anecdotal. Yet sometimes anecdotes are also history. They very often explain events wide in their influence over the Affairs of the world m general and Royal Houses in which at first sight seem extraordinary, whilst in reality, they are but the development of some small circumstance. So far as we know there exists no chronicle of the Russian Court, and true anecdotes concerning it are extremely rare. Much has been written on the subject by outsiders upon hearsay; but here we have a book penned by a man who spent his life in the milieu which he describes, who knew intimately the people he writes about, who was present at most of the scenes which he describes, That alone would ensure an interest to this volume.