In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography of First-hand English-language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613-1917)/Reign of Alexander II (1855-1881)

9. REIGN OF ALEXANDER II (1855-1881)

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Fig. 43 Alexander II (n.d.), photographer unknown.


See also G64, G99, G112, G123, G124, H13, H87, H103

[Eckardt, Julius Wilhelm Albert von], Russia before and after the war. By the author of ‘Society in St. Petersburg’ &c. Translated from the German (with later additions by the author) by Edward Fairfax Taylor. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1880. xiv+436pp.

The German historian, journalist, and diplomat Dr Eckardt (1836-1908), who had studied law at St Petersburg, Dorpat, and Berlin, produced a series of informed studies of nineteenth-century Russia, two of which, Modern Russia: comprising, Russia under Alexander II; Russian communism; The Greek Orthodox Church and its sects; The Baltic provinces of Russia (1870) and Distinguished persons in Russian society (1873), had previously appeared in English translation, the first under his name. In this work he injects a few pages of personal reminiscences of the eight months in 1855 (following Nicholas I’s death) that he spent at St Petersburg University (pp. 204-15).Princess Harry (discusscontribs)

Habersham, Alexander Wylly, My last cruise; or, where we went and what we saw: being an account of visits to the Malay and Loo-Choo islands, the coasts of China, Formosa, Japan, Kamtschatka, Siberia, and the mouth of the Amoor river. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1857. 507pp.

U.S. navy lieutenant Habersham (1826-83) presents his “strictly matter-of-fact” account of his voyage as a member of the North Pacific surveying and exploring expedition that set out from America on 21 June 1853. It reached Kamchatka in July 1855 and left Russian waters for San Francisco two months later, having visited various settlements (pp. 317-496).


Pulling, John, A tour in Southern Europe and the Crimea. London: James Nisbet and Co., 1858. viii+138pp.

Rev. Pulling, minister of a chapel on High Street Deptford, and his companion John Martin travelled first to Spain at the end of August 1855 and then proceeded from Gibraltar to Constantinople. After visiting the hospital at Scutari, they sailed to the Crimea and visited Balaklava and other battle sites (pp. 88-113) before returning to England overland via Greece and Italy.


Galt, Edwin, The camp and the cutter; or, a cruise to the Crimea. London: Thomas Hodgson, 1856. xii+240pp.

Galt was yet another anxious to visit the sites and “sights” of the Crimea, as the conflict neared its end. He left London in October 1855 to Malta, where he joined his “cutter”, which he was, however, obliged to leave for repairs in Constantinople, when he sailed to Balaklava in December. Over the next month he endured the severity of a Crimean winter as he visited the battlefields, before returning to Constantinople, which he left for home on 18 February (pp. 61-170).


White, Andrew Dickson, Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White. London: Macmillan and Co., 1905. 2 vols.

White (1832-1918) served seven months as an attaché in the U.S. legation in St Petersburg in 1855 (vol. I, pp. 38-39). In November 1892 he returned as U.S. minister until December 1894 (vol. II, pp. 5-116). He describes in detail his meetings with Pobedonostsev and his walks and talks with Tolstoi in March 1894. See also on visit to Moscow (vol. II, pp. 453-55).


McPherson, Duncan, Antiquities of Kertch, and researches into the Cimmerian Bosphorus: with remarks on the ethnological and physical history of the Crimea. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857. xiv+130pp.

An impressive folio volume with numerous plates and in-text wood engravings in which an historical introduction is followed by a “detailed account of the author’s researches” (pp. 31-108). These were conducted in 1855-56 during Dr McPherson’s “scanty leisure” from his major important role as inspector-general of hospitals to the Turkish forces during the Crimean War.


Mahony, James, The book of the Baltic: being the North of Europe Steam Company’s route to Denmark, Sweden and Russia, Norway, Prussia and the Hanseatic ports. London: Effingham Wilson; Dublin: McGlashan & Gill, 1857. 160pp.

Designed as a tourist’s guide to the northern ports to which the company’s steamers sailed and to the towns reached by the connecting railway routes, it is based on a journey made by Mahony in 1856. His lively and informed account is accompanied by many of his own drawings. Although most attention is given to St Petersburg, Revel, Narva and Cronstadt are described, as are Moscow and, briefly, Nizhnii Novgorod (pp. 42-103).


Blackwood, Alicia, A narrative of personal experiences & impressions during a residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Crimean War. London: Hatchard, 1881. viii+318pp.

Lady Blackwood, née Lambart (1818-1913) and her husband, Rev. James Blackwood (d. 1882), on hearing of the battle of Inkerman, decided to sail to Turkey in December 1854, she to help in the hospital at Scutari and he as chaplain to the forces. Shortly after the peace on 31 March 1856 they paid a visit to the Crimea before returning to England. They arrived at Balaklava on 21 April and visited Sevastopol, Inkerman, and other sites and made an excursion to Bakhchiserai before leaving on 23 May (pp. 242-306). Her own drawings illustrate her book.


Train, George Francis, Young America abroad in Europe, Asia, and Australia: a series of letters from Java, Singapore, China, Bengal, Egypt, the Holy Land, the Crimea and its battlefields, England, Melbourne, Sydney, etc. etc. [Introduction by Freeman Hunt.] London: Sampson Low, Son & co., 1857. xxii+480pp.

Train (1829-1904), American businessman and entrepreneur, visited the Crimea from 28 April to 4 May 1856, shortly after the end of the war, visiting Balaklava and Sevastopol (pp. 288-316).


Sala, George Augustus Henry, A journey due north; being notes of a residence in Russia, in the summer of 1856. London: Richard Bentley, 1858. viii+311pp.

Although Sala (1828-95) “put Russia down in my juvenile itinerary as a place to be visited”, it was as a special correspondent for Household Words appointed by its editor Charles Dickens that he sailed into Cronstadt on 20 May 1856. He remained until December and seems to have spent almost all his time in St Petersburg, although there are references to Tver and the Volga and country estates in what is an infuriatingly jokey-whimsy self-indulgent set of impressions (pp. 45-311).


Bunbury, Selina, Russia after the war: the narrative of a visit to that country in 1856. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1857. 2 vols.

Miss Bunbury (1802-82), prolific authoress of novels and travel books, as well as a collection of anecdotes about Peter the Great (1850), arrived at Cronstadt in the summer of 1856 with her charge Harry, but ennui, the lack of good water, and heat soon drove them to an extended stay in Finland. They then proceeded to Moscow to witness the coronation, but on their return to the capital they decided not to winter there, but head for “the shores of old England. Hurra!”


Murphy, John, Russia at the time of the coronation of Alexander II: being a series of letters addressed from Moscow and St. Petersburg to the ‘Daily News’. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856. viii+171pp.

The letters were “addressed” by its special correspondent to the Daily News but not all were sent or published. In addition to his detailed record of the coronation and accompanying events, Murphy describes the sights in St Petersburg and Moscow, with interesting information on the British presence, in letters dated from 11 August to 3 October 1856.


Moltke, Helmut Karl Bernhard, Field-marshal Count Moltke’s letters from Russia. Translated from the German by Robina Napier. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1878. xxxii+163pp.

Count Moltke (1800-91), attending the coronation in his capacity as chief of the Prussian general staff, describes his stay in St Petersburg and Moscow (which he infinitely preferred to the capital) in a series of letters dated from 15 August to 8 September 1856.


Spottiswoode, William, A tarantasse journey through eastern Russia in the autumn of 1856. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857. xii+258pp.

The mathematician and physicist (1825-83), Fellow of the Royal Society and later its president, begins his account with his departure from Moscow on 3 September 1856, having travelled from England via Berlin, Warsaw and St Petersburg. Suggests (erroneously) that his route had previously been accomplished “almost exclusively” by scientific expeditions and offers a “three-month tour” without exciting incidents and political allusions. He travelled east via Kazan to Perm, then down to Orenburg, then west to Samara and Saratov, following the Volga down to Astrakhan, and returning via Tambov to Moscow and was back in Warsaw by 3 November. Fourteen of his own drawings accompany the text.


Collins, Perry McDonough, A voyage down the Amoor: with a land journey through Siberia, and incidental notices of Manchooria, Kamschatka, and Japan. New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1860. 390pp. [See also Siberian journey down the Amur to the Pacific 1856-1857. Edited with an introduction by Charles Vevier. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962]

The New-Yorker Collins (1813-1900), appointed official American commercial agent to the Amur river, undertook to travel the whole length of the river “to ascertain its fitness for steamboat navigation” and left Moscow on 3 December 1856 by the post road for Irkutsk. His journey down the Amur ended with his arrival in Nikolaevsk at the river’s mouth on 10 July 1857 and subsequent departure from Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka on 7 October for America.


Train, George Francis, My life in many states and in foreign lands. Dictated in my seventy-fourth year. London: William Heinemann, 1902. xxi+348pp.

The year after his visit to the Crimea (pp. 215-20) (see I9), Train went again to Russia in 1857, visiting St Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod (pp. 249-58).


Hume, George, Thirty-five years in Russia. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1914. xxiii+320pp.

Hume (b. 1836) arrived in Russia for the first time in 1857 and remained there until 1892, when illness obliged him to return to England. He was involved in a succession of business concerns, mainly agricultural machinery, travelled extensively throughout Ukraine, but resided mostly in Kharkov with his family.


Gadsby, John, A trip to Sebastopol, out and home, by way of Vienna, the Danube, Odessa, Constantinople, and Athens; together with some account of Russia and the Russians, their manners and customs, particulars and incidents of the war, anecdotes, &c. London: Gadsby, 1858. 182pp.

Publisher and lecturer, Gadsby set out from London on 29 June 1857 with the specific intention to write of “Sebastopol as I found it after the war”. He arrived at Odessa on 12 July and visited Sevastopol and many of the battle sites before sailing away on 2 August (pp. 27-167). He makes liberal use of published sources such as Kohl and Custine.


Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, The life and correspondence of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., late Dean of Westminster. By Rowland E. Prothero, with the co-operation and sanction of the Very Rev. G.G. Bradley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. London: John Murray, 1893. 2 vols.

Shortly after his appointment as Regius Professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford, Stanley (1815-81) undertook his first journey to Russia to study the history of the Greek Church. He arrived in St Petersburg on 1 August 1857, went on to Moscow, Vladimir, and Nizhnii Novgorod, and was back in Oxford by mid-October (vol. I, pp. 515-34). He paid his second visit to Russia in 1874 at the request of Queen Victoria to conduct the Protestant ceremony at the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh. He and his wife left England on 9 January 1874 and their experiences in Russia are conveyed in a series of letters to his sister Mary (vol. II, pp. 423-44).


Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Letters and verses of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D. between the years 1829 and 1881. Edited by Rowland E. Prothero. London: John Murray, 1895. viii+454pp.

Includes Stanley’s letters to his mother and George Grove during his 1857 visit to Russia (pp. 271-82) and also his five detailed letters to Queen Victoria during his 1874 visit (pp. 383-99).


Latrobe, John Hazelhurst, John H B. Latrobe and his times, 1803-1891. By John E. Semmes. Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1917. 601pp.

The Philadelphia lawyer (1803-91) was requested by Winans of the firm of Winans, Harrison, and Winans, that had gained a contract to remount the railway from St Petersburg to Moscow, to accompany him to Russia to represent the firm’s interests. He arrived in Russia on 29 September 1857 and spent five months there with a short visit to Moscow at the end of February 1858. Large extracts from Latrobe’s diary and letters (pp. 473-528).


Heywood, Robert, A journey to Russia in 1858. Manchester: privately printed, 1918. ii+41pp.

Heywood and his wife visited Russia at the invitation of Count Aleksandr Adlerberg, arriving in St Petersburg on 24 June 1858. Five weeks of typical tourism in St Petersburg, Moscow and St Petersburg again followed. The text of a lecture printed fifty years after he had delivered it to the Bolton Mechanics’ Institute (of which he was a member).


I23) [Pearson, Charles Henry], Russia, by a recent traveller: a series of letters originally published in ‘The Continental Review’. Revised and illustrated. London: William Francis Graham, 1859. vii+167pp.

Pearson (1830-91), a lecturer in history at King’s College, London, spent two months in Russia in the summer of 1858, and was joined after two weeks in St Petersburg by an Oxford friend, Rev. Henry Boyd. They travelled to Tver and down the Volga as far as Kazan and returned via Vladimir to Moscow. A book, Pearson was later to recall, that did not meet his expenses, but brought the favourable attention of Alexander Herzen.


Pearson, Charles Henry, Charles Henry Pearson, Fellow of Oriel and education minister in Victoria: memorials by himself, his wife, and his friends. Edited by William Stebbing. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900. xiv+320pp.

Contains a little further material from Pearson’s ‘Story of my life’, most notably about his visit to Poland at the time of the insurrection of 1863 (pp. 99-100, 109-18).


Taylor, James Bayard, Travels in Greece and Russia, with an excursion to Crete. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co., 1859. 426pp.

Taylor (1825-78), eminent American poet and travel writer, first visited Russia in the summer of 1858, visiting St Petersburg and Moscow (pp. 315-426).


Dumas, Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, Adventures in czarist Russia. Translated and edited by A.E. Murch. London: Peter Owen, 1960. 194pp.

In June 1858 the popular French novelist (1802-70) accompanied to Russia an aristocratic Russian family (the Kuleshev-Bezborodkos) he had met in Paris. After six weeks in St Petersburg and a fortnight in Finland, he proceeded to Moscow, where he was a guest of the Naryshkins. In September he set off down the Volga to Astrakhan, where his account finishes (pp. 38-194). Condensed translation from Dumas’ four-volume En Russie (1860).


Dumas, Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, Adventures in the Caucasus. Translated and edited by A.E. Murch. London: Peter Owen, 1962. 205pp.

In the sequel to his earlier book, Dumas recounts his travels and adventures in the Caucasus during the period that Shamyl was still waging his campaign for independence against the Russians. After leaving Astrakhan on 2 November 1858, he and a friend, the artist Moynet, travelled from Kizliar to Derbent and Baku and then to Tiflis. He left for France from Poti in February 1859 (pp. 15-205). Condensed translation from Dumas’s En Caucase (1859).


Gautier, Théophile, Travels in Russia. In The works of Théophile Gautier. Translated and edited by F.C. de Sumichrast. London: George G. Harrap, 1900-03. 24 vols.

The celebrated French poet and novelist (1811-72) sailed from Lübeck to St Petersburg in the autumn of 1858 and spent the next seven months in the capital and Moscow before returning overland to Paris. With a poet’s eye and palette he provides a refreshing and often original view of familiar places and events in the two capitals (vol. XIII (1902), pp. 92-358; XIV, pp. 3-131). Back in Paris, he was obsessed with memories of Russia and determined to spend a summer there and specifically to visit Nizhnii Novgorod, drawn by “the demon of travel” and the melody of its name. Continuing his work on a projected but only half-completed ‘Art treasures of ancient and modern Russia’, he went first to Moscow, then to Tver and down the Volga to Nizhnii (vol. XIV, pp. 133-211). The first French edition in book form of Voyages en Russie appeared in 1866.


Pepys, Charlotte Maria, A journey on a plank from Kiev to Eaux-Bonnes, 1859. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1860. 2 vols.

Lady Pepys (1822-89), who dedicated her book to Russian friends “in memory of days spent with them; days much enjoyed, and lovingly remembered”, left Kiev on 23 June 1859, as an invalid, “on a plank”, and thus deprived of the normal opportunities for sight-seeing. She travelled to Warsaw on her slow progress to Eaux-Bonnes and Pau, where she finished her book in October 1859. A few observations on Kiev apart (vol. I, pp. 1-15), her work’s Russian interest lies in an appendix containing her verses and translations from the Russian, principally Lermontov, under her pen name of Viola (vol. II, pp. 253-71). The following year, she published her novel Domestic sketches in Russia.


Smyth, Charles Piazzi, Three cities in Russia. London: Lovell Reeve & Co., 1862. 2 vols.

The three cities Smyth and his wife Jesse (née Duncan) visited between July and late October 1859 and described in two vast volumes, totalling a thousand pages, were St Petersburg, Moscow and, less predictably, Novgorod. Smyth (1819-1900), Scottish astronomer royal from 1846 and F.R.S., offers much of scientific interest but is intent on also providing a sympathetic insight into “the feelings, traditions, and moving impulses of Russians”.


Tilley, Henry Arthur, Japan, the Amoor, and the Pacific; with notice of other places comprised in a voyage of circumnavigation in the imperial Russian corvette “Rynda”, in 1858-1860. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1861. xii+405pp.

Invited in September 1858, for reasons never explained, to join Commodore Popov on his ship sailing from Brest to Japan and across the Pacific, the Irish traveller Tilley reached Nikolaevsk on the Amur a year later and took the opportunity to explore briefly the hinterland (pp. 203-47).


Tilley, Henry Arthur, Eastern Europe and western Asia: political and social sketches on Russia, Greece, and Syria in 1861-2-3. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1864. xii+374pp.

Almost immediately on his return to England, Tilley accompanied Popov to St Petersburg in the autumn of 1860. In January 1861 he was already in Syria (see preface of earlier book), having travelled from Moscow via Kharkov and Rostov to Taganrog and by boat to Odessa, before boarding the Russian frigate Admiral in November 1860 and beginning his second cruise (pp. 5-226). His travel account is padded out with essays on, for example, Russo-Polish relations and the emancipation of the serfs.


Thornbury, George Walter, Criss-cross journeys. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1873. 2 vols.

“Written not very long before the abolition of serfdom”, c.1860, the four chapters Thornbury (1828-76) devoted to his short stay in Moscow (vol. II, pp. 245-342) cover visits to a mosque, a gypsy concert, a prison, and the sight of prisoners destined for Siberia.


Edwards, Henry Sutherland, The Russians at home: unpolitical sketches, showing what newspapers they read; what theatres they frequent; and how they eat, drink, and enjoy themselves; with other matter relating chiefly to literature and music, and to places of historical and religious interest in and about Moscow. London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1861. iv+447pp.

The title says it all, or almost. Edwards (1828-1906), who had spent many years in Russia, provides a detailed and informed account about the personalities and issues of Russian contemporary literary, musical, and artistic life, totally unexpected in the context of existing English writing on Russia. There is much on the censorship, journals, the fables of Krylov, the poetry of Pushkin and others, on opera and music, as well as on burning questions of the support for, and opposition to, the emancipation of the serfs.


[Anderson, Robert], Sketches of Russian life before and during the emancipation of the serfs. Edited by Henry Morley, Professor of English literature in University College, London. London: Chapman and Hall, 1866. vi+298pp.

The author, whose verbose writings Professor Morley had edited and published previously in All the year round, had “spent fifteen years of a long life among the Russians in active business of divers kinds”, although the various incidents he records all date from the 1860s. (Andersons, incidentally, had been trading in Russia since the eighteenth century.) He travelled extensively through Russia, recalling incidents in, for instance, Tula, Serpukhov, Moscow, and St Petersburg, often to illustrate the effects of serfdom and emancipation. Much on the British in Russia, particularly at time of the Crimean War.


Browne, John Ross, The land of Thor. New York: Harper & Bros., 1867. 542pp.

Irish-born American writer, artist and traveller, Browne (1821-75) left his family in Germany to arrive in Russia in July 1861 “with a knapsack on my back and a hundred dollars in my pocket” to make an extensive tour “along the borders of the Arctic”. Utterly lonely in St Petersburg, he fared better in Moscow. Impressed most by the Russians’ love of vodka, he offers essays on the serfs and emancipation and Russian civilization, before departing from Cronstadt a few weeks later for Revel and Finland (pp. 9-223).


[Morgan, Henry Arthur], The northern circuit or brief notes of Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Cambridge and London: Macmillan and Co., 1862. viii+122pp.

A Cambridge don, later Master of Jesus, Rev. Morgan (1830-1912) and two friends, whom he calls Tew and the Captain, travel by steamer from Hull to Sweden in the summer of 1861 and eventually on to St Petersburg and Moscow. Superficial notes of a tourist who recommends six weeks in the north, but infinitely prefers Sweden to Russia (pp. 80-122).


Laurie, William Ferguson Beatson, Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden, Russia) local, social, and political, in 1861; with a succinct continuation down to May, 1862. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1862. xii+382pp.

Captain Laurie (1819-91), fresh from service in India, undertook a northern tour with his father in the summer of 1861, setting out in early August for Scandinavia and arriving at Cronstadt in November. After a short stay in St Petersburg, they left by train for Poland and Berlin (pp. 171-229).


Clay, Cassius Marcellus, The life of Cassius Marcellus Clay: memoirs, writings, and speeches, showing his conduct in the overthrow of American slavery, the salvation of the Union, and the restoration of the autonomy of the states. Cincinnati, Ohio: J. Fletcher Brennan and Co., 1886. 2 vols.

Clay (1810-1903) was twice appointed U.S. minister to the court of Russia, arriving for the first time and briefly in 1861-62 and returning the following year for an extended stay until 1869. Gruff and vain, he delighted in his ignorance of court etiquette and prided himself on the good impression he made on everyone, from the emperor down and including all the most beautiful ladies at court (vol. I, pp. 293-96, 326-450).


Taylor, James Bayard, By-ways of Europe. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1869. 2 vols.

In May 1862 Taylor accompanied Senator Simon Cameron, the newly appointed American minister to Russia, as his secretary of legation. He remained until May the following year. The first three sketches in By-ways relate to this period. The first, ‘A cruise on Lake Ladoga’ (vol. I, pp. 21-66), describes to a trip in July 1862 by Taylor and two American friends, “the first of our countrymen to visit the northern portion of the lake”; the second, ‘Between Europe and Asia’ is the description of a visit with the minister and other members of the legation to the fair at Nizhnii Novgorod and to Moscow (pp. 69-100); and the third is devoted to ‘Winter-life in St Petersburg’ (pp. 103-36).


Taylor, James Bayard, Life and letters of Bayard Taylor. Edited by Marie Hansen-Taylor and Horace E. Scudder. London: Elliot Stock, 1884. 2 vols.

Contains letters to his mother, friends and government officials during his year in St Petersburg (vol. I, pp. 386-414).


Taylor, Marie Hansen, On two continents: memories of half a century. With the co-operation of Lilian Bayard Taylor Kiliani. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1905. xii+309pp.

The German-born Marie Hansen (1829-1925), whom Taylor had married in October 1857, did not accompany her husband on his first visit to Russia the following year, but in July 1862 she joined him in St Petersburg (pp. 120-44).


Moor, Henry, A visit to Russia in the autumn of 1862. Chapman and Hall, 1863. vi+234pp.

Moor was invited to visit Russian friends at their estate near Pskov, where he was particularly interested in the implications of the recent emancipation act of 1861. He then travelled to Novgorod and on to Moscow. He visited the fair at Nizhnii before travelling to St Petersburg and home via Warsaw. His account had appeared the previous year in Bentley’s Miscellany.


Graves, Samuel Roberts, A yachting cruise in the Baltic. London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1863. xii+399pp.

Graves (1818-73), chairman of Liverpool’s local marine board and commodore of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, embarked in July 1862 on a cruise of the Baltic on the yacht Ierne that he and his companions decided to extend to St Petersburg, coinciding with a visit by Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred. They then went by train to Moscow and pronounced themselves very happy with all they had seen and done (pp. 174-313).


Anderson, Fortescue Lennox Macdonald, Seven months’ residence in Russian Poland in 1863. London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., 1864. xii+214pp.

Rev. Fortescue (b. 1832), son of the English chaplain in Bonn, accompanied his friend, the Polish nobleman Count Alexander von Bisping-Galen, from Germany in February 1863 to stay on his estate near Grodno. He was to be caught up in the insurrection of 1863 and falsely accused, was imprisoned in Grodno, before he was eventually released in mid-September after the intervention of three Oxbridge dons.


O’Brien, Augustin P., Petersburg and Warsaw: scenes witnessed during a residence in Poland and Russia in 1863-4. London: Richard Bentley, 1864. viii+248pp.

O’Brien left St Petersburg for Poland in August 1863, deeply pro-Polish in the wake of the recent insurrection. Over the next few months he interviewed Russian and Polish officials and visited prisons and came to what he offered as a more balanced view of the motives and conduct of both Polish insurrectionists and Russian oppressors.


Michie, Alexander, The Siberian overland route from Peking to Petersburg, through the deserts and steppes of Mongolia, Tartary, etc. London: John Murray, 1864. xiii+402pp.

Inspired by his compatriot John Bell’s eighteenth-century account of his journey from St Petersburg to Pekin, Michie (1833-1902) journeyed westwards, leaving the Chinese capital on 14 August 1863. From the Russian border at Kiakhta, he travelled on through Siberia via Irkutsk and Tomsk to Ekaterinburg, and then to Kazan and Moscow. He left St Petersburg in January 1864 (pp. 203-356).


Mitford, Algernon, 1st Baron Redesdale, Memories. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1915. 2 vols.

Mitford (1837-1916) arrived in St Petersburg on 30 November 1863 to serve for six months in the British embassy under Lord Napier. He recalls political and social events in the capital and a visit to Moscow in May 1864 (vol. I, pp. 204-306).


Zychlinski, Ludwik, The memoirs of Ludwik Zychlinski: reminiscences of the American civil war, Siberia, and Poland. Translated by Eugene Podraza. Edited with an introduction by James S. Pula. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. xviii+111pp.

After serving as a volunteer in the Union army, the Polish patriot Zychlinski (1837-91) hurried back from America to his homeland on hearing of the January 1863 uprising. Captured by the Russians in December 1863, he was sentenced to twenty years’ exile in Siberia, where he was to take part in the Baikal uprising in 1865, but was released in 1868 and returned to Poland (pp. 91-108).


Grant Duff, Mountstuart Elphinstone, Notes from a diary 1851-1872. London: John Murray, 1897. 2 vols.

Sir Mountstuart (1829-1906), a keen student of Russian affairs and close friend of the noted Russian exile Nikolai Turgenev, paid a brief visit to St Petersburg in December 1863 to attend the marriage of his brother to a Miss Morgan of the British community. He also went to Moscow and Sergiev Posad before departing for Poland on 31 December (vol. I, pp. 243-45).


Curtin, Jeremiah, Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin. Edited with notes and introduction by Joseph Schafer. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1940. x+925pp.

Renowned American anthropologist, linguist, translator, and traveller, Curtin (1835-1906) was secretary of legation of the United States in St Petersburg from 1864 to 1870 (pp. 78-293). In this posthumously published autobiography he also describes his subsequent visits from Poland to Kiev and St Petersburg at the end of 1898 (pp. 674-81) and to St Petersburg in the summer of 1900, deciding to travel home via Siberia, but first diverting from Moscow to see Tolstoi at Iasnaia Poliana, and finally reaching Vladivostok in October (pp. 776-815). He paid further short visits to 1901 to St Petersburg and Moscow (pp. 848-52). and to St Petersburg in May 1902 and at the end of 1904 (pp. 870-71, 895-96). Curtin held “the conviction that sometime Russia and America will be the great powers of the world”.


Ussher, John, A journey from London to Persepolis; including wanderings in Daghestan, Georgia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Persia. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865. xvi+703pp.

Ussher, F.R.G.S., undertook with a friend his long journey in the summer of 1864 “solely for purposes of pleasure and amusement”, although its chief object was to visit Daghestan, scene of the activities of Schamyl. They first entered Russia at Odessa, explored the Crimea, before travelling through Georgia to Vladikavkaz and into Daghestan. They went to Baku before returning to Tiflis in late September and preparing to proceed to Armenia and beyond (pp. 27-230).


Forsyth, William, The great fair of Nijni Novogorod, and how we got there. London: privately printed by W. Clowes & Sons, 1865. 117pp.

Forsyth (1812-99), later Q.C. and commissary of Cambridge University, and his brother Douglas left London on 8 August 1864, travelling to St Petersburg via Berlin and Warsaw. Impressions of the capital and Moscow precede the visit to the fair at Nizhnii, which they found disappointing and stayed less than a day, although he opined there was “no pleasanter country in which to make an autumn tour than Russland” (pp. 42-117).


St John, Frederick Robert, Reminiscences of a retired diplomat. London: Chapman and Hall, 1905. xviii+315pp.

Sir Frederick (1831-1923), while serving at the Pekin embassy, was persuaded by the Americans Raphael Pumpelly (see I55) and Thomas Walsh to travel with them in November 1864 through Mongolia across Siberia. After a month’s stay at Troitskozavodsk, waiting for the ice on Baikal to thicken, they journeyed on by sledge in “such discomfort and fatigue”, before parting company in Irkutsk. St John continued to Nizhnii Novgorod, before taking the train to St Petersburg and leaving for England early in 1865 (pp. 86-102).


Pumpelly, Raphael, Across America and Asia: notes of a five years’ journey around the world and of residence in Arizona, Japan and China. New York: Leypoldt & Holt, 1870. xvi+454pp.

Pumpelly (1837-1923), American geologist and later Harvard professor, began his travels at the end of 1860 and, after long periods of residence in Japan and China, journeyed (with Walsh and St John) from Pekin through Mongolia to Kiakhta and into Siberia at the end of December 1864. He stayed for three weeks in Irkutsk, before travelling to Ekaterinburg, visiting the copper mines at Nizhnii Tagilsk, and then by train from Nizhnii Novgorod to St Petersburg (pp. 388-427).


Michell, Thomas, Handbook for travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland. New edition, revised by Thomas Michell. London: John Murray, 1865. v+282pp.

Michell (1835-99), born in Cronstadt, returned to Russia as 1860 as translator and attaché in the British embassy. In 1866 he was second secretary and consul. He used his first-hand knowledge of the country to revise completely the earlier Murray handbook (1849 version) and update it in four subsequent editions (1875-93).


Goldsmid, Frederic John, Telegraph and travel: a narrative of the formation and development of telegraphic communication between England and India, under the orders of her majesty’s government, with incidental notices of the countries traversed by the lines. London: Macmillan and Co., 1874. xiv+673pp.

Colonel Sir Frederic (1818-1908) was at Kerch in December 1855 during the Crimean War, but it is his travels in 1865 (and partially in 1870, 1871, and 1872) that are the substance of the second “travel” part of his book, when he was chief director of the government Indo-European telegraph. Leaving London on 23 June 1865 en route for Tehran, he stopped in St Petersburg to consult the director of the Imperial Russian Telegraph, before proceeding down the Volga to Astrakhan and reached Baku on 22 July. Interleaved are excerpts from his diary of 1865 and references to his 1870 visit (pp. 474-529).


Bush, Richard J., Reindeer, dogs, and snow-shoes: a journal of Siberian travel and explorations made in the years 1865, 1866, and 1867. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1871. 529pp.

One of a group of four members (who included George Kennan (see I59)) of a Russo-American telegraph surveying expedition, Bush sailed from San Francisco on 3 July 1865 for Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. His book is a detailed record of “what the author himself saw, heard, and endured during his sojourn of nearly three years in those cold, desolate, and unwritten, yet interesting regions”, that for him was sailing on by Sakhalin to the Amur at Nikolaevsk and more or less following a line inland of the Sea of Okhotsk to finish among the Chukchis to await the boat to take them home to “the world and civilization” in September 1867.


Kennan, George, Tent life in Siberia; and adventures among the Koraks and other tribes in Kamtchatka and northern Asia. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1871. ix+425pp.

The complementary account to Bush’s, far better known, and written by the young Kennan (1845-1924), who was to become one of the most eminent and influential of America’s commentators on Russia (see J36). Notable for his closely observed notes on the lives and languages of native tribes.


Whymper, Frederick, Travel and adventure in the territory of Alaska, formerly Russian America – now ceded to the United States – and in various other parts of the north Pacific. London: John Murray, 1868. xviii+331pp.

Whymper (1838-1901), artist and explorer, brother of the famous alpinist, twice visited Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka, in the course of long sea voyages, firstly in September-October 1865 (pp. 84-104) and then in July-early August of 1866, before preceding to the Siberian mainland and trading with the Chukchis (pp. 106-24).


Pollington, John Horace Savile, Half round the old world, being some account of a tour in Russia, the Caucasus, Persia, and Turkey, 1865-66. London: Edward Moxon & Co., 1867. ii+403pp.

A tour that began in London on 14 July 1865 took Viscount Pollington (b. 1843), F.R.G.S., to St Petersburg, where he met up with his future travelling companion, Captain W-. They soon travelled to Moscow and then took a steamer down the Volga to Astrakhan. By 9 October they had crossed the Caspian, passed through Georgia and left Erevan en route for Persia (pp. 4-174). “An exact transcription of a diary”, nothing more offered or added.


Mounsey, August Henry, A journey through the Caucasus and the interior of Persia. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1872. xii+336pp.

Mounsey (d. 1882), F.R.G.S., arrived at the port of Poti at the end of December 1865, having travelled from London via Constantinople. He travelled on to Tiflis, which he left in mid-January 1866 for Erevan, travelling in atrocious conditions. He then proceeded to his ultimate destination, Persia (pp. 14-82). He began the return journey on 3 July, crossing the Caspian to Baku and eventually proceeding up the Volga to Nizhnii Novgorod and by railway from there to England (pp. 328-33).


Knox, Thomas Wallace, Overland through Asia: pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar life; travels and adventures in Kamchatka, Siberia, China, Mongolia, Chinese Tartary, and European Russia, with full accounts of the Siberian exiles, their treatment, condition, and mode of life, a description of the Amoor River, and the Siberian shores of the Frozen Ocean. London: Trübner & Co., 1871. xviii+608pp.

Knox (1835-96) undertook his long journey for pleasure, for journalism, and as a member of the Russo-American Telegraph Company’s expedition surveying for a possible “electric connection between Europe and the United States by way of Asia and Bering’s Straits”. He sailed from New York on 21 March 1866 to San Francisco and then to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. He crossed the sea of Okhotsk to the mouth of the Amur to start his journey up the river and then across Siberia, where he writes much about the exiles, past and present, before he reached St Petersburg five months and 600 pages later.


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Eden, Robert, Impressions of a recent visit to Russia: a letter from the right rev. the lord bishop of Moray & Ross, primus of Scotland to the rev. chancellor Massingbred, chairman of the committee of the lower house of the convocation of Canterbury on intercommunion with the Eastern Orthodox Church, with a preface. Occasional paper of the Eastern Church Association. No. V. London, Oxford and Cambridge : Rivingtons, 1867. 15 p.

Eden (1804-86), bishop of Moray and Ross and patron of the Eastern Church association (founded in 1863) was sent to Russia in May 1866 by the bishop of London to hold confirmations in northern Russian towns and cities and to discuss with many influential Russian churchmen and officials questions of reunion of the churches.


Loubat, Joseph Florimond, Narrative of the mission to Russia, in 1866, of the hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, assistant-secretary of the navy. From the journal and notes of J.F. Loubat. Edited by John D. Champlin, Jr. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1873. viii+444pp.

Fox (1821-83) was sent by Congress to congratulate Alexander II on his escape from assassination and sailed on the monitor Miantonomoh to St Petersburg, where he arrived on 5 August 1866. Over the following weeks until their departure on 27 September the Americans were fêted wherever they went, which included Moscow and towns along the Volga (pp. 78-409). The visit was chronicled in minute and fascinating detail by Vasa’s secretary (1831-1927) and the appendices included the score of the ‘Miantonomoh galop’, composed for the piano by Heinrich Fürstnow in Fox’s honour (pp. 430-35).


Appleton, Nathan, Russian life and society. As seen in 1866-67 by Appleton and Longfellow, two young travelers from the United States of America, who had been officers in the Union Army, and a journey to Russia with General Banks in 1869. Boston: Murray and Emery, 1904. 226pp.

Letters to his family from Harvard graduate and brevet captain Appleton (1843-1906), who with his companion Longfellow (1844-93), son of the American poet, travelled to St Petersburg and Moscow in 1866-67. Appleton draws many comparisons between the abolition of slavery in the USA and the emancipation of the serfs in Russia, and focuses on other recent reforms, to argue for Russia’s modernization and its plausibility as an American ally. In 1869 Appleton returned to Russia with General Nathaniel Prentice Banks (1816-94).


Dicey, Edward James Stephen, A month in Russia during the marriage of the czarevich. London: Macmillan and Co., 1867. viii+248pp.

Journalist, newspaper editor, and author of travel and historical works, Dicey (1832-1911) left England at the end of October 1866 to attend the wedding of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, the future Alexander III, to Princess Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Fedorovna), which took place on 9 November. Dicey was the only British journalist to follow the Prince of Wales and his party throughout his visit. The wedding and accompanying events in St Petersburg and in Moscow are described in great detail, but there is also much of interest on the British community in St Petersburg, including a description of the British seamen’s hospital in Cronstadt, and Dicey’s “low-life” visits to a tavern and music hall.


Héritte-Viardot, Louise, Memories and adventures. Translated from the German by E.S. Bucheim. London: Mills & Boon, 1913. xiv+271pp.

Appointed professor at the conservatoire on the recommendation of Anton Rubinstein, Héritte-Viardot (1841-1918) arrived in St Petersburg in 1867. She describes artistic life in the capital, as well as trip into central Russia with a friend. Subsequent sections record a visit to the Crimea in 1868 and a prolonged stay in Moscow. She left for Geneva in 1871 (pp. 142-216).


Sheepshanks, John, My life in Mongolia and Siberia: from the Great Wall of China to the Ural Mountains. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1903. xii+175pp.

Sheepshanks (1834-1909), who became Bishop of Norwich in 1893, spent many years abroad after being ordained in 1857. In late June 1867, following his visit to China and Mongolia and interested in inspecting Russo-Greek church missions in Siberia, he entered Russia at Kiakhta and made his way to Irkutsk, which he left on 26 September en route for Moscow (pp. 115-75).


Sheepshanks, John, A bishop in the rough. Edited by D[avis]. Wallace Duthie. With a preface by the right rev. the Lord Bishop of Norwich. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1909. xxxviii+386pp.

Sheepshanks’ life as a missionary in Canada and his work and travels in Asia as recounted by a member of his clergy includes his journey from Mongolia through Siberia to England in 1867 (pp. 351-82).


Lowth, George T., Around the Kremlin; or, pictures of life in Moscow. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1868. viii+346pp.

Author and traveller, Lowth offers, despite the theft of his “Murray”, an undemanding tour of the sights of Moscow, punctuated by visits to the estate of a Count L*, to Sergiev Posad, and to Nizhnii Novgorod.


Twain, Mark (pseudonym of Clemens, Samuel Langhorne), The new pilgrim’s progress: a book of travel in pursuit of pleasure: the journey home. London: John Camden Hotten, 1871. 259pp.

In 1867 Twain (1835-1910), as a roving correspondent for a number of American newspapers, accompanied a group of American tourists sailing on the Quaker City for the Holy Land but with numerous stops and excursions en route. One such side trip was from Constantinople to Sevastopol, “probably the worst battered town in Russia or anywhere else”, then to Odessa, and back to Yalta, where they were received by the tsar and his family (pp. 39-57). The first edition was published in the U.S.A. in 1869 under the title The innocents abroad, which was adopted for the first half of the book published in England the previous year.


Carroll, Lewis (pseudonym of Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge), ‘Journal of a tour in Russia in 1867’. In The works of Lewis Carroll. Feltham, Middlesex: Spring Books, 1968. 1130pp.

Three years after writing Alice’s adventures in wonderland, Rev. Dodgson (1832-97), mathematical lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, embarked on a European tour that took him and a friend to St Petersburg on 27 July 1867 from where they departed on 26 August after an excursion to Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod. Interesting above all for the descriptions of visits to monasteries and churches and Dodgson’s fascination with the peculiarities of the Russian language (pp. 965-1005). First full publication in England of the journal that had first appeared in an edition of sixty-six copies as Tour in 1867. By C.L. Dodgson. From the original manuscript in the collection of M.L. Parrish. Philadelphia: Privately Printed, 1928.


Liddon, Henry Parry, Life and letters. By John Octavius Johnston. With a concluding chapter by the Lord Bishop of Oxford. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904. xii+424pp.

Excerpts from the letters of Dodgson’s companion on his tour, Rev. Liddon (1829-90), also of Christ Church (pp. 100-09).


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Liddon, Henry Parry, The Russian journal - II: a record kept by Henry Parry Liddon of a tour taken with C.L. Dodgson in the summer of 1867. Edited with an introduction and notes by Morton N. Cohen. New York: Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 1979. xxvi+52pp.

Succinct entries, detailing meetings with church officials, places visited, health concerns, and weather. conditions. Russian entries, from crossing the Russian border on 26 July 1867 to departure on 26 August, with visits to St Petersburg, Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod (pp.11-36).


Creagh, James, A scamper to Sebastopol and Jerusalem in 1867. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873. 429pp.

Irish-born Creagh, who had served as a captain in the 1st Royals during the Crimean War and was subsequently the author of several travelogues to the near east, travelled through Russian Poland on his way to Jerusalem. He later travelled by steamer to Odessa and then on to the Crimea, visiting the battle sites at Sevastopol and Balaklava as well as making trips to Bakhchisarai and Yalta, before reaching Kerch. There he took a steamer to Novorossiisk and explored parts of Circassia, before sailing from Poti to Batumi and into Turkey (pp. 213-93).


Coston, Martha Jay, A signal success: the work and travels of Mrs Martha J. Coston: an autobiography. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1886. 333pp.

Mrs Coston, née Hunt (1828-1904), was an American naval officer’s widow, who perfected a system of marine signalling he had invented and created a successful business. She arrived in St Petersburg with her niece at the beginning of August 1867 with the idea of interesting the Russians in the system through the agency of Admiral Farragut (see I76), but the letter she sent him was not received and her plans came to nothing (pp. 196-203).


Montgomery, James Eglinton, Our admiral’s flag abroad: the cruise of Admiral D.G. Farragut, commanding the European squadron in 1867-68, in the flag-ship Franklin. New York: G.P. Putnam & Son, 1869. xvi+464pp.

The Franklin arrived at Cronstadt on 10 August 1867 and left three weeks later. The admiral’s secretary reaches for the superlatives to describe the reception given to the Americans during their visits to St Petersburg, Nizhnii Novgorod, and Moscow (pp. 47-84).


Robson, Isaac and Harvey, Thomas W., Narrative of the visit of Isaac Robson and Thomas Harvey to the south of Russia. London: n.p., 1868. 39pp.

In 1867 the two Quakers heard the call to visit Molokan settlements near the Sea of Azov and travelled to Odessa. They then sailed to Yalta and sought without success an audience with the tsar who was at Livadia. They subsequently visited Mennonite villages in the southern steppes before departing from Odessa.


Schuyler, Eugene, Selected essays. With a memoir by Evelyn Schuyler Schaeffer. London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 1901. 364pp.

The eminent American historian and diplomat (1840-90), author of a life of Peter the Great and translator of Turgenev, was appointed American consul in Moscow in September 1867, became secretary of legation in St Petersburg in the autumn of 1869, travelled widely, including a tour of Russian Central Asia (see I109), and left for a new appointment in Constantinople in February 1876 (pp. 21-56). Schuyler’s long essay (published in 1889) on Tolstoi, whom he first met in October 1868, is also included (pp. 207-99).


Hodgetts, Edward Arthur Brayley, Moss from a rolling stone. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1924. viii+304pp.

Born in Berlin to English parents, Hodgetts (1859-1932) as a young boy first went to Russia at the end of the 1860s and remained until 1879, working ultimately in a Moscow bank (pp. 65-89). A decade later he returned from England to Russia as resident Petersburg correspondent of the new Daily Graphic (pp. 162-85). After a spell in Berlin he was again in Russia, reporting for Reuters on the famine of 1891-92 and meeting Tolstoi (pp. 207-25) (see J113). It was for the Daily Graphic that he went in 1895 to Tiflis and Baku to report on the Armenian massacres (pp. 261-82) (see K6).


Freshfield, Douglas William, Travels in the central Caucasus and Bashan, including visits to Ararat and Tabreez and ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869. xiii+509pp.

The distinguished geographer and mountaineer (1845-1934) first visited the Caucasus with three friends in 1868. He made the first ascents of a series of peaks including Kazbek and Elbrus (pp. 141-496).


Kennedy, John Pendleton, At home and abroad: including a journal in Europe, 1867-68. New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1872. 415pp.

Kennedy (1795-1870) was a prominent politician, novelist, and secretary of the U.S. navy. This posthumous publication includes his journal of travels that took him to from London via Stockholm to St Petersburg, where he arrived on 10 July 1868. He visited cathedrals, palaces and libraries in the capital and Moscow before leaving from St Petersburg for Hamburg at the beginning of August (pp. 400-10).


Lamont, James, Yachting in the Arctic seas, or, notes of five voyages of sport and discovery in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. London: Chatto and Windus, 1876. viii+387pp.

Sir James (1828-1913), F.R.G.S., describes his journey to the Kara Sea on his specially-built three-masted schooner, the Diana, between April and August 1869, observing and shooting walruses, deer, and much else (pp. 1-198).


[Ely, Jane, Marchioness of], Mafeesh, or, nothing new; the journal of a tour in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the Sinai-desert, Petra, Palestine, Syria, and Russia. London: printed [by William Clowes and Sons] for private circulation. 2 vols.

The journal of the tour undertaken by a much-loved lady of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria, Jane Loftus (1821-90), Dowager Marchioness of Ely (née Hope-Vere), her son, the 4th Marquess, and friends begins with their departure from Trieste on 16 November 1868. They eventually reached Constantinople and sailed for Odessa on 15 June 1869. After exploring the Crimea they made their way to Moscow via Rostov, travelling up the Don and then the Volga. Their journey, and the journal, finished with a visit to St Petersburg, most notable for a description of the imperial review at Krasnoe selo. They left for home on 10 July (vol. II, pp. 135-237).


Harvey, Annie J., Turkish harems and Circassian homes. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1871. x+307pp.

Mrs Harvey of Ickwell Bury, as she styles herself on the title page, spent “a past summer” (1869 or 70), cruising with her husband on the schooner yacht Claymore on the Black Sea. After visiting Constantinople and the Turkish coast, they headed for the Crimea, landing first at Evpatoria before proceeding to Sevastopol, from where they made several excursions to the battle sites. Yalta provided another prolonged stop with a visit to the Vorontsov palace at Alupka, before they sailed on for Sukhumi and the delights of the Circassian coast (pp. 111-270).


Grey, Theresa Georgina, Journal of a visit to Egypt, Constantinople, the Crimea, Greece, &c. in the suite of the Prince and Princess of Wales. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1869. viii+302pp.

Styling herself the hon. Mrs William Grey, Swedish-born Theresa (1837-1901) (née von Stedingk), lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Wales, describes the cruise of the yacht Ariadne, which they joined at Trieste on 27 January 1869 and left at Brindisi on 2 May. They reached the Crimea on 12 April and proceeded to visit the major battle sites of the war, then the palaces at Livadia and Alupka, before sailing from Yalta three days later (pp. 172-89).


Whyte, William Athenry, A land journey from Asia to Europe: being an account of a camel and sledge journey from Canton to St. Petersburg through the plains of Mongolia and Siberia. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1871. xvi+336pp.

Whyte (b. 1838), F.R.G.S., left Canton on his return journey to England in September 1869, leaving Mongolia and camels to reach Kiakhta in late October. Although he writes that his journey through Siberia to St Petersburg, where he arrived at the beginning of January 1870, was “once in a lifetime [and] more than sufficient”, his account is uneventful and boringly written (pp. 188-336).


Barry, Herbert, Russia in 1870. London: Wyman & Sons, 1871. xii+418pp.

Barry, author of a concise account of the Russian metallurgical industry (1870), made his first visit to Russia in 1858 and lived there permanently from 1866 to 1870, when he was the director of a group of iron works in Vladimir, Tambov and Nizhnii Novgorod gubernii. He attacks the misrepresentation of Russian life in Hepworth Dixon’s Free Russia and offers his own “fair account of the existing state of affairs”, believing in the great potential of Russia in the post-Emancipation era. Chapters on provincial towns and villages, sports and pastimes, manufacturing, as well as on Siberia and the fair at Nizhnii Novgorod.

Barry, Herbert, Ivan at home; or, pictures of Russian life. London: The Publishing Company, 1872. xvi+322pp.

Barry followed up the success of his earlier book with a series of sketches of Russian life, manners and customs – weddings, funerals, village notables, superstitions, even strikes. Dedicated to Alexander II, whom Barry greatly admired.


Dixon, William Hepworth, Free Russia. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1870. 2 vols. Free Russia Vol. 1 | Free Russia Vol. 2

Although he refers to two earlier journeys in Russia, Dixon (1821-79), traveller and author, had in February 1870 only recently returned from travelling from Archangel to the Urals and down to Ukraine, visiting the great religious shrines at Solovetsk, Kiev, Novgorod and Sergiev Posad and interesting himself in particular in the religious life of the people. His wish to paint “the Living People” in free, i.e. post-Emancipation, Russia was aspirational rather than realized.

Wallace, Donald Mackenzie, Russia. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1877. 2 vols.

The classic study of post-Emancipation Russia written by the scholarly Scot Sir Donald (1841-1919), who arrived in Russia in March 1870 and remained until December 1875, spending the winters in St Petersburg, Moscow and Iaroslavl and the summers wandering the countryside, gathering the reliable and wide-ranging data that he constantly updated for further editions, particularly those of 1905 and 1912. In 1887-88 he was correspondent of The Times in St Petersburg.


Atkinson, Joseph Beavington, An art tour to northern capitals of Europe. London: Macmillan & Co., 1873. xii+455pp.

Atkinson (1822-86) offers the first detailed English-language account of art treasures in Russia that he saw during his visits to St Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev in the summer of 1870. He arrived from Sweden in mid-July and left via Odessa and Austrian Poland two months later (pp. 149-433). Much on the Hermitage, particularly its imported art works, but also detailed attention to Russian art, ancient and modern, although his verdict is that “in Russia genius is exceptional, while mediocrity is all but universal”.


[Murray, Eustace Clare Grenville], The Russians of to-day. By the author of ‘The Member for Paris’ &C. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1878. xxi+304pp.

Although it is highly dubious that Murray’s Pictures from the battle fields (1855) was based on a visit to the Crimean battlefields (see H144), his service as British consul in Odessa during at least the first decade of Alexander II’s reign provided the material for the wide-ranging, if flippant sketches that purported to show aspects of Russian life in Odessa and surrounding region in the 1870s. His characters include Prince Wiskoff, Tripoff and a Jewish merchant Simon Iscariotovitch, but he is interesting, for instance, on the English in Russia, the character of the tsar, and the popularity of Russian authors.


Kennan, George, Vagabond life: the Caucasus journals of George Kennan. Edited, with an introduction and afterword, by Frith Maier, with contributions by Daniel C. Waugh. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003. xvi+266pp.

In 1870 Kennan (see I59) returned to Russia for a second time, arriving at Cronstadt on 6 July, and travelling from St Petersburg on 27 August to Moscow and down the Volga to Astrakhan. By the time he sailed from Poti for Constantinople on 28 November he had spent some ten weeks travelling through the Caucasus (pp. 59-219). Unpublished in his lifetime, his (skilfully edited) diaries recount his adventures in a region new to Americans.


Wilkinson, David, Whaling in many seas and cast adrift in Siberia, with a description of the manners, customs, and heathen ceremonies of various (Tchuktches) tribes of North-Eastern Siberia. London: Henry J. Drane, 1906. 296pp.

New Zealand-based explorer and whale hunter Wilkinson, whilst on a whaling expedition in the Arctic Ocean, was shipwrecked on 9 October 1870 and washed ashore somewhere on the East Cape of Siberia. He reached an Eskimo village, where he remained until the end of March 1871. He then made the treacherously difficult journey by sledge to Plover Bay, where he was picked up by another whaling vessel and remained in the region until the end of the whaling season in late September 1871.


Cunynghame, Arthur Augustus Thurlow, Travels in the eastern Caucasus, on the Caspian and Black Seas, especially in Daghestan, and on the frontiers of Persia and Turkey, during the summer of 1871. London: John Murray, 1872. xvi+367pp.

General Sir Arthur (1812-84), who had served with distinction in the Crimea in 1854-55, was also an energetic traveller and writer of various books that included his journey with his son Henry (who illustrated the volume) from Constantinople to Odessa and on to the Crimea and through Georgia to Persia from late July to late September 1871 (pp. 83-349).


Bax, Bonham Ward, The eastern seas: being the narrative of the voyage of H.M.S. ‘Dwarf’ in China, Japan, and Formosa; with a description of the coast of Russian Tartary and eastern Siberia, from the Corea to the river Amur. London: John Murray, 1875. xii+287pp.

Suggesting that the British public knew much about Russian central Asia, Captain Bax of the Royal Navy offered his account of the Russian eastern ports as something new. The Dwarf left Hong Kong in July 1871 and reached Russian waters on 1 August. They remained in the area until 11 September, visiting settlements and harbours, such as Vladivostok, described in some detail, and Nikolaevsk, before passing Sakhalin on their way to Japan (pp. 157-82).


Proctor, Edna Dean, A Russian journey. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1871. iv+321pp.

The American poet (1829-1923) travelled to Russia in 1871 as part of a European tour, journeying from St Petersburg to Moscow and then down the Volga. It was in the Crimea, at Yalta, that she saw the tsar, lauding him in verse, as she had almost everything else on her journey through Russia, which she left via Kishinev. In 1890 she published a “revised edition with prelude” that expressed her regret that freedom for the peasantry had still not been achieved.


Richardson-Gardner, Robert, A trip to St. Petersburg. Westminster: printed for the author by T. Brettell and Co., 1872. 91pp.

The reprinting of a series of letters from the author to his brother John that had previously appeared in the Windsor and Eton Herald and described a trip “in the dead of winter” that he, his wife, and three army officers had made not only to St Petersburg but also to Moscow. They arrived in the capital at the end of December 1871, visited Moscow for a few days at the end of January, and departed from St Petersburg for Warsaw early in February 1872.


Harvie-Brown, John Alexander, Travels of a naturalist in northern Europe, Norway, 1871, Archangel, 1872, Petchora, 1875. London: Fisher Unwin, 1905. 2 vols.

The Scottish ornithologist and prolific author (1844-1916) travelled extensively and visited northern Russia, studying bird life by the White and Kara seas, in the early 1870s (vol. I, pp. 125-60, II, pp. 261-477).


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Gilmour, James, Among the Mongols. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1883. xiv+382pp.

Rev. Gilmour (1843-91), perhaps the most famous of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, first went out to China in 1870 and spent twenty years among the Chinese and Mongols of Inner Mongolia, adding Mongol and Buriat to his many languages. In March 1871 he visited the abandoned missionary post at Selenginsk, a Siberian garrison town not far from the border with Outer Mongolia, and crossed Baikal to Irkutsk (pp. 28-54).


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Wellesley, Frederick Arthur, With the Russians in peace and war: recollections of a military attaché. London: Eveleigh Nash, 1905. viii+324pp.

Appointed military attaché to the British embassy in St Petersburg in 1871 while still an absurdly inexperienced junior officer in the Coldstream Guards, the hon. Frederick (1845-1931) remained for seven years and travelled widely through Russia as part of his official and non-official duties, including the Kirghiz steppe and the Crimea. He was with the Russian imperial headquarters throughout the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.


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Wellesley, Frederick Arthur, Recollections of soldier-diplomat. Edited by his son Sir Victor Wellesley. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1948. 171pp.

Includes a succinct account of his Russian experiences, to which his son has added new information about the secret mission with which he was entrusted by Queen Victoria during his short visit to England in August 1877 (pp. 11-149).


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Prime, Samuel Irenaeus, The Alhambra and the Kremlin: the south and the north of Europe. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Co., 1873. xxiv+482pp.

An unusual – in intention if not in execution – comparison of primarily Spain and Russia offered by an American clergyman during travels in 1872 that took him from Spain through Switzerland to German and Poland and to St Petersburg and Moscow before proceeding to Finland and Scandinavia (pp. 284-370).


I103a
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Law, Edward Fitzgerald, The life of Sir Edward FitzGerald Law, K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G. Compiled and edited by Theodore Morison and George T. Hutchinson. London and Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1911. vi+395pp.

Sir Edward (1846-1908) spent many years in Russia at various stages of his life and in different capacities. For ten years between 1872 and 1882 he travelled extensively throughout Russia, selling agricultural machinery and acquiring a deep knowledge of the country and of its language. He was in Siberia and Manchuria in 1885 on behalf of the Amur River Navigation Company and returned to St Petersburg in January 1888 as commercial attaché at the British embassy under Sir Robert Morier. Back in England in 1890 after extensive travels around the Black Sea and in Persia, he seems to have visited St Petersburg again in the autumn of 1893. Wrote articles on Russia for the Fortnightly Review and Quarterly Review, but regrettable left no letters or diaries. See pp. 11-35, 73-101, 126-27.


I104
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Carrington, George, Behind the scenes in Russia. London: George Bell and Sons, 1874. xvi+224pp.

A minor writer of fiction and travel, Carrington (b. 1844) claims originality for forsaking “description and illustration”, suggesting that “if not critical I will be nothing”, although the end product, including his hostile view of the Orthodox Church and of almost everything else, is unremarkable, except for its arrogance (“there is no literature”!). He seems to have arrived by train from Berlin in July 1872 and remained, in St Petersburg, Moscow, and possibly Orel, until the late summer of the following year.


I105
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Brooks, Phillips, Letters of travels. London: Macmillan and Co., 1893. vii+386pp.

Letters to members of his family sent by the late Bishop of Massachusetts (1835-93) during his various travels, which included the summer of 1872 in northern Europe. He sailed to St Petersburg and then visited Moscow and Nizhnii Novgorod before departing for Warsaw. Two letters of 18 and 25 August cover his visit (pp. 166-69).


I106
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Montefiore, Moses Haim, Report presented by Sir Moses Montefiore, bart., president, to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on his return from his mission to St. Petersburg, August, 5632-1872. London: printed by Wertheimer, Lea and Co., 1872. 24pp.

The account of the second Russian journey undertaken by Sir Moses (in his eighty-eighth year), accompanied by Dr Loewe, his secretary, and Dr Daniel, his personal physician (for first journey in 1846, see G99). They arrived in St Petersburg on 19 July 1872 and were received by the tsar in the Winter Palace on 24 July, when Sir Moses presented the address from the Board of British Jews, offering congratulations on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great. His report highlights “the marked improvements” that had taken place in all areas, including the position of the Jews, since his last visit in 1846. They left on 25 July, travelling via Königsberg and Berlin.


I107
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Thielmann, Max Guido von, Journey in the Caucasus, Persia, and Turkey in Asia. Translated by Charles Heneage. London: John Murray, 1875. 2 vols.

A secretary at the German embassy in St Petersburg, Baron von Thielmann (1846-1929) resolved to meet up with friends in Odessa in August 1872. Their extensive travels would take them by sea to Poti, before they struck inland through Georgia down to Erevan and then back northwards to reach the Caspian at Petrovsk and thence by sea to Baku and into Persia by mid-October (vol. I, pp. 1-308; II, pp. 1-19).


I108
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Ker, David, On the road to Khiva. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874. xvi+359pp.

The Daily Telegraph’s special correspondent in Khiva and later noted as a prolific author of stories for boys (including Cossack and czar), Ker (1842-1914) left England in early March 1873 and travelled via St Petersburg to the Black Sea and on to Tiflis, whence “my real journey commences”. It is this eventful journey from Orenburg via the border forts of Kazalinsk and Perovskii to Turkestan, Tashkent, and Samarkand that forms the substance of his book.


I109
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Schuyler, Eugene, Turkistan: notes of a journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876. 2 vols.

Taking leave of absence from his post in St Petersburg (see I78), Schuyler left on 23 March 1873 and visited Orenburg, Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bokhara, before returning on 15 November, having amassed much information on the newly annexed regions and on the conduct of Russian officialdom.


I110
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Buckham, George, Notes from the journal of a tourist. New York: Gavin Houston, 1890. 2 vols.

The American tourist Buckham, accompanied by his wife, visited St Petersburg and Moscow between 21 July and 8 August 1873 and produced precisely what his title promised (vol. II, pp. 385-421).


I111
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Wells, Sarah Furnas, Ten years travel around the world, or, from land to land, isle to isle and sea to sea, embracing twenty tours in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Prussia, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Russia, Turkey, Holy Land, Syria, Egypt, India, Singapore, Java, Australia, South America, Central America, Sandwich Islands and North America. Introduction by Rev. E.J. Scott. West Milton, Ohio: Morning Star Publishing Co., 1885. xxiv+653pp.

An indefatigable traveller, Mrs Wells (1834-1912) paid three visits to Russia. She spent three months in St Petersburg and Moscow in the summer of 1873 (pp. 58-62). The following year, a tour through the Mediterranean took her eventually to Odessa, where she spent the month of July 1874 before travelling to Kiev for a further extended stay before leaving for Warsaw (pp. 97-101). Finally, specifically “to see the czar [Alexander III] crowned”, she sailed from New York in the spring of 1883 and after witnessing the event in Moscow, returned from St Petersburg on 17 June (pp. 593-603).


I112
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Knox, Thomas Wallace, Backsheesh; or life and adventures in the Orient, with descriptive and humorous sketches of sights and scenes over the Atlantic, down the Danube, through the Crimea, in Turkey, Greece, Asia-Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, up the Nile in Nubia, and Equatorial Africa, etc., etc. Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1875. 694pp.

Some six years after his previous foray into Siberia (see I63), Knox went to the Crimea as part of “a peaceful crusade to the East, undertaken for purposes of pleasure and profit”. Sailing down the Danube, he arrived in Odessa and left immediately for a tour of the Crimea, visiting the battlefields, before returning to Odessa and sailing to Constantinople in the summer of 1873 (pp. 93-116).


I113
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Guthrie, Katherine Blanche, Through Russia: from St. Petersburg to Astrakhan and the Crimea. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1874. 2 vols.

Mrs Guthrie and her daughter planned a tour of art collections in the museums of leading European cities, including St Petersburg and Moscow, but were so fascinated by their stay in Moscow that they decided to extend their tour (three months in all in the summer of 1873) by sailing down the Volga and then journeying on to the Crimea, where they visited all the battle sites, before leaving for Constantinople.


I114
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Baker, Valentine, Clouds in the east: travels and adventures on the Perso-Turkoman frontier. London: Chatto and Windus, 1876. xii+376pp.

Colonel Baker (1827-87), late commander of the 10th Hussars, set out with two other officers from London on 20 April 1873 with the aim of travelling through Central Asia to gather “political, geographical, and strategical information that might be valuable”. They travelled via Vienna to Constantinople and entered Russian territory at Poti, travelling to Tiflis and on into Persia (pp. 18-42). They left Persia at the end of November and returned to England via Rostov, Moscow, and St Petersburg (pp. 318-28).


I115
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MacGahan, Januarius Aloysius, Campaigning on the Oxus, and the fall of Khiva. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1874. x+438pp.

The New York Herald and Daily News correspondent (1844-78) offered his book as “rather a record of travel and adventure than a regular history of a military campaign”. It begins with his journey to the Aral Sea in April 1873, accompanied as far as Fort Perovskii by Eugene Schuyler, the American chargé d’affaires in Petersburg, and ends with his return in September, having witnessed the fall of Khiva on 9 June, after adventures that gave him legendary status in Russia.


I116
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Nasir al-Din Shah, The diary of H.M. the Shah of Persia, during his tour through Europe in A.D. 1873. A verbatim translation by J.W. Redhouse. London: John Murray, 1874. xx+427pp.

The first of three European journeys by the shah (1831-96) brought him and his entourage by boat to Astrakhan on 14 May 1873. They sailed up the Volga to Tsaritsyn and then proceeded by rail to Moscow and arrived in St Petersburg on 22 May, where, after a week of official engagements, they proceeded to Berlin (pp. 22-67). After visiting most of the European capitals, including London, the shah on his return journey sailed from Constantinople to Poti, where he arrived on 28 August, and then proceeded to Tiflis (pp. 401-27).


I117
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Phelps, Charles Harris, A trip from Finland to Persia, Dahgestan, and Circassia, delivered before the American Geographical Society, April 30, 1876. New York: n.p., 1876. 28pp.

Lecture by New York lawyer (b. 1845) of his journey from St Petersburg to Moscow and then down the Volga to Astrakhan in July 1873, illustrated by photographs that are part of the Phelps photographic collection left to the National Geographic.


I118
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Stanley, Augusta Elizabeth Frederica, Later letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, 1864-1876, including many unpublished letters to and from Queen Victoria and correspondence with Dean Stanley, Lady Frances Baillie, and others. Edited by the Dean of Windsor [Albert Victor Baillie] and Hector Bolitho. London: Jonathan Cape, 1929. 288pp.

Lady Stanley, née Bruce (1822-76), long-time confidante of Queen Victoria and officially designated one of “the Queen’s ladies”, accompanied her husband Dean Stanley (see I19) to Russia in January 1874 to attend the wedding of the Duke of Edinburgh. She wrote detailed letters to her sister during the visit (pp. 199-239).


I119
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Telfer, John Buchan, The Crimea and Transcaucasia, being the narrative of a journey in the Kouban, in Gouria, Georgia, Armenia, Ossety, Imeritia, Swannety, and Mingrelia, and in the Tauric range. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1876. 2 vols.

Telfer (1831?-1907), R.N., F.S.A. and F.R.G.S., writes in his preface that the book was in fact the result of two journeys he and his Russian wife (Ekaterina Muraveva, referred to as “K”) made to the region during the three years he lived in south Russia (1873-76), fashioned into a substantial and well-informed guide-book for a 92-day round trip from Odessa and supplying all the information a tourist might need from sights to supplies.


I120
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Meignan, Victor, From Paris to Pekin over Siberian snows: a narrative of a journey by sledge over the snows of European Russia and Siberia, by caravan through Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert and the Great Wall, and by mule palanquin through China to Pekin. Edited from the French by William Conn, with supplementary notes not contained in the original edition. London: W. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1885. xx+428pp.

The young Frenchman (b. 1846) left Paris on 25 October 1873 to realize his dream of travelling through Siberia “in its wondrous winter garb” and it was only when he exchanged train for sledge at Nizhnii Novgorod on 15 December that his real journey begins and is described in detail as he travelled to the Chinese border via Perm, Tiumen, Omsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Lake Baikal by March 1874 (pp. 1-284).


I121
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Wiggins, Joseph, The life and voyages of Joseph Wiggins, F.R.G.S., modern discoverer of the Kara Sea route to Siberia based on his journals & letters. By Henry Johnson. London: John Murray, 1907. xxiv+396pp.

Captain Wiggins (1832-1905), one of the most celebrated of late Victorian Arctic explorers, pioneered the route via the Kara Sea to the Enesei and up the river to Eneseisk, making several voyages between 1874 and 1896. He paid a further brief visit to Russia in April 1905 on the invitation of the Russian government to help organize famine relief efforts (pp. 25-64, 85-188, 191-92, 202-19, 250-55, 268-300, 317-25).


I122
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Wood, Herbert, The shores of Lake Aral. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1876. xxviii+352pp.

A major in the Royal Engineers and F.R.G.S., Wood was invited to join the Russian Geographical Society’s expedition to Lake Aral, beginning his well-informed and detailed account with his departure from Samara in the spring of 1874.


I123
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Butler-Johnstone, Henry Alexander Munro, A trip up the Volga to the fair of Nijni-Novgorod. Oxford and London: James Parker & Co., 1875. viii+151pp.

Butler-Johnstone (1837-1902), M.P., travelled on board the steamer Alexander II from Astrakhan to Nizhnii Novgorod in the summer of 1874, first describing his trip through “the most interesting portion of the Russian Empire” in a series of letters to the Daily News. Due attention is given to the German colonies around Saratov, the koumiss-cure establishments near Samara, and the attractions of Kazan, but it is the annual fair at Nizhnii that is described in particular and interesting detail (pp. 68-151).


I124
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Grove, Florence Crauford, ‘The frosty Caucasus’: an account of a walk through part of the range and of an ascent of Elbruz in the summer of 1874. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1875. x+341pp.

A founder member of the London Alpine Club and later its president, Grove (1838-1902) and three fellow climbers arrived in Odessa on 23 June 1874 en route for Kutais and thence into the mountains of the Caucasus. They were to scale the western summit of Elbruz on 28 July (p. 238).


I125
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Godfrey, W.H.K., Three months on the continent; or, the record of a tour through Europe in 1874: supplemented by the journal of a trip to the Great Lakes of America, in 1873. Waterbury, Conn.: American Print Co., 1875. vii+180pp.

“Originally a hastily written series of letters to the Waterbury American newspaper, and has been published in book form at the request of friends, mainly for private circulation.” They describe a tour in the summer of 1874 that takes the author from England to France, Belgium, Germany, and on to Russia, where he celebrates 4 July in St Petersburg with Marshall Jewell, the American minister, before travelling to Moscow, exiting via Poland for Austria and Italy (pp. 60-96).


I126
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Boulton, Samuel Bagster, The Russian empire: its origin and development. London, Paris & New York: Cassell & Co., 1882. 192pp.

Sir Samuel (1830-1918), founder and chairman of the London Labour Conciliation Board, included in his potted history of Russia impressions from his first tourist visit with members of his family in August 1874, which are interesting solely for the trip to the estate of Count S- and his English wife on an estate some hours’ journey from the capital (pp. 5-57).


I127
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Rae, Edward, The land of the north wind; or, travels among the Laplanders and the Samoyedes. London: John Murray, 1875. xvi+352pp.

Rae (b. 1847), F.R.G.S., and his companion Henry Brandeth paid two visits to the Arctic region in 1873-74. It was the second of these, begun on 18 June 1874, that was to take them directly by ship from the Firth of Forth to Archangel. They then travel inland to Pinega and on to Mezen, where they encounter the Samoeds, whose life and language they attempt to study. Rae proves an amusing raconteur (pp. 144-352).


I128
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Rae, Edward, Siberia in Europe: impressions of the Samoyedes and their country. Chester: Chester Society of Natural Science, 1876. 46pp.

Rae’s lecture on “the least known people in the world”, given in Chester a year after the appearance of his book.


I129
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Seebohm, Henry, Siberia in Europe: a visit to the valley of the Petchora, in north-east Russia; with descriptions of the natural history, migration of birds, etc. London: John Murray, 1880. xvi+311pp.

The ornithologist Seebohm (1832-1895), accompanied by the zoologist John Alexander Harvie-Brown (see I99), left London on 3 March 1875, travelling via St Petersburg and Archangel to reach the lower valley of the Pechora, where their bird-watching (and shooting) began in earnest. They set sail on 3 August for Elsinore.


I130
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Reed, Edward James, Letters from Russia in 1875. London: John Murray, 1876. xvi+90pp.

The letters, which were previously published in The Times, begin on 6 October 1875 from Nikolaev, the Black Sea port, where the eminent naval architect Sir James (1830-1906), M.P., F.R.S., had arrived the previous day, travelling via Vienna, Cracow and Odessa. In six lengthy letters, the first four from New Russia and the Crimea and the last two from Moscow and St Petersburg, towards the end of the month, he describes Russian naval matters, particularly the development of circular ironclads for the defence of the Azov Sea. Otherwise notable for his highly positive assessment of the marine artist Aivazovskii (pp. 58-61).


I131
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Boker, George Henry, [‘Letter’], in Eugene Schuyler, Selected essays. London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., 1901. 364pp.

Prolific American dramatist and poet, most noted for his romantic drama Francesca da Rimini (1856), Boker (1823-90) had a brief career as a diplomat in the 1870s. Following a spell in Turkey he was posted as minister in 1875-78 to St Petersburg, from where on 26 October 1876 he addressed his letter to Schuyler about the reception of his book on Central Asia (see I108) (pp. 83-85).


I132
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Burnaby, Frederick Gustavus, A ride to Khiva: travels and adventures in central Asia. With maps and an appendix, containing, amongst other information, a series of march-routes, translated from several Russian works. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1876. xviii+487pp.

A captain in the Royal Horse Guards, Burnaby (1842-85), who had visited Russia for the first time in 1870, decided to use a period of leave to journey through Russia to Khiva to investigate the dangers for Britain of Russian expansionism. He set out from England on 30 November 1875 and, despite the hostile winter conditions, reached his goal in January 1876 and was received by the khan. He was back to England in March and was lionized for his exploits.


I133
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Phillipps-Wolley, Clive, Sport in the Crimea and Caucasus. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1881. x+370pp.

British vice-consul in Kerch, Sir Clive (1853-1918), who first visited the Caucasus in February 1876, describes in detail several hunting expeditions he made in the area until his return to England in 1880. The book includes, incidentally, his first (unremarked) translation from Pushkin (pp. 359-61).


I134
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Brehm, Alfred Edmund, From North Pole to Equator: studies of wild life and scenes in many lands. Translated from the German by Margaret R. Thomson. Edited by J. Arthur Thomson. London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin: Blackie & Son, 1896. 592pp.

The German naturalist Brehm (1829-84) travelled extensively through Siberia in 1876. After his death his son published his lectures and papers, which include several devoted to the animal, bird, and human (exiles as well as native peoples) life in Siberia and the Kirghiz steppe (pp. 86-168, 416-540). One entitled ‘A journey in Siberia’ details his itinerary from St Petersburg in March 1876 via Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Tashkent, across the Kirgkiz steppe to the Altai mountains, then again into Siberia to the Urals and north to the tundra to visit the Ostiaks (pp. 390-415).


I135
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Upton, Emory, The armies of Europe & Asia: embracing official reports on the armies of Japan, China, India, Persia, Italy, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, and England; accompanied by letters descriptive of a journey from Japan to the Caucasus. Portsmouth: Griffin & Co., 1878. x+446pp.

Commandant of cadets at West Point from 1870 to 1875, Major-General Upton (1839-81) began in July 1875 a two-year world tour under instructions from the U.S. Secretary of War “to examine and report upon the organization, tactics, discipline, and the manoeuvres” of the various armies. His route took him on 6 April 1876 from Persia into Russia, and he traveled to Tiflis, then across the Caucasus to Rostov and to Sevastopol, where he arrived on 23 April. In addition to the information on the Russian army (pp. 146-60), there are two letters describing the Caucasus part of his journey (pp. 434-40).


I136
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Eyre, Selwyn, Sketches of Russian life and customs, made during a visit in 1876-7. London: Remington and Co., 1878. ii+337pp.

Eyre reaches Moscow via Warsaw in late July 1876. He remained there until the end of August 1877, penning the series of effusive letters that comprise his book. The impending Russo-Turkish war is a constant theme in his undemanding parade of “facts and pictures as they have been presented to my view”.


I137
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Bryce, James, Transcaucasia and Ararat, being notes of a vacation tour in the autumn of 1876. London: Macmillan and Co., 1877. x+420pp. [4th edition, with added chapter on Armenian question, 1896. x+526pp.]

British jurist, historian and politician James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce of Dechmont (1838-1922), begins his account with his departure from Nizhnii Novgorod on 24 August 1876. He travels via Voronezh to Taganrog before journeying through the Caucasus to Tiflis. He leaves Tiflis on 6 September for Armenia, visiting Erevan and ascending Ararat, before retracing his steps via Tiflis to Poti on the Black Sea, whence he sails to Constantinople.


I138
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Ainslie, Ainslie Douglas, Russia: a lecture delivered at Fraserburgh and Petershead on the 10th and 11th January 1877. Banff: printed at the Banffshire Journal Office, 1880. 42pp. [Included as ‘Russia as I found it’ (pp. 37-102), in his Glances over past and present. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1913, viii+327pp.]

The text of a long, long lecture delivered by the poet and translator (1839-1929), following a recent visit to Russia in the summer of 1876. The first half was devoted to an overview of Russian history and literature (with interesting lines on Pushkin); the second, with the help of a magic lantern, to his tour of St Petersburg.


I138a
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Lindholm, Otto Wilhelm., Beyond the frontiers of imperial Russia: from the memoirs of Otto W. Lindholm. Edited by Alexander de Haes Tyrtoff and Nicholas Tyrtoff Davis. Javea, Spain: A. de Haes OWL Publishing, 2008. xvi+437pp.

Born in Swedish-speaking Finland, Lindholm (1832-1914) spent much of his early years at sea, working for the Russian-American Company, before travelling across Siberia in November 1861-May 1862 to the sea of Okhotsk, where he intended to start a whaling business. It was, however, only in 1874 that he settled in Vladivostok. He became one of its most influential businessmen in the years up to WWI, involved in an amazing variety of enterprises and projects, many of which enhanced the town’s commercial importance and cultural life. His memoirs stop abruptly in October 1907.


I139
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Long, James, A visit to Russia in 1876. London: printed by R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, 1876. 11pp.

Rev. Long (1814-87), eminent Anglo-Indian translator of Krylov’s fables (1869) and commentator on both Russian and Indian affairs (see his Village communities in India and Russia (1870)), had visited Russia on two previous occasions, in 1863 and 1872-73, as he frequently recalls in his brief account of his third and final visit in the autumn of 1876. He visited clerics in St Petersburg and Moscow, discussing ecclesiastical matters and recommending greater understanding and intercourse between the Anglican and Russian churches.


I140
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Roth, Henry Ling, A sketch of the agriculture and peasantry of eastern Russia. London: Baillière, Tindall, & Cox, 1878. viii+110pp.

After studies in London and Germany, the young Roth (1854-1925), future anthropologist and museum curator, went to Russia in 1876-77 to work in “practical farming” at Timashevo, a village near Samara. He travelled extensively throughout the Volga region, visiting the German and Swiss colonies, and studying agricultural practices and the life and customs of the peasants.


I141
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Roth, Henry Ling, Sketches and reminiscences from Queensland, Russia, and elsewhere... Reprinted from the “Halifax Courier”, Sept., 1915 to May, 1916. Halifax, 1916. 39pp.

Roth recalls his stay in Russia in 1876-77 and in Australia in 1878-84 in articles written for his local paper in Halifax, where he had settled in 1888.


I142
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Burnaby, Frederick Gustavus, On horseback through Asia Minor. London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1877. 2 vols.

Burnaby (see I132) used his next spell of extended leave to see the region from the Turkish side and travelled to Constantinople and thence to Kars and Batumi in the winter of 1876-77. It was a visit that increased his pro-Turkish stance and fears of the Russian threat to India.


I143
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Baedeker, Friedrich Wilhelm, Dr. Baedeker: and his apostolic work in Russia. By Robert Sloan Latimer. With introductory notes by Princess Nathalie Lieven and Lord Radstock. London: Morgan and Scott, 1907. 223pp.

Dr Baedeker (1823-1906), German by birth but a British citizen, marrying and dying in England, was after his conversion in 1866 a tireless evangelist with the Russian empire as the particular centre of his activities. He first went to Russia in 1877 and in the course of the next three decades travelled throughout the empire from the Baltic provinces to Siberia and Sakhalin, and to the Caucasus and the Caspian. Long extracts from his diaries and letters (pp. 29-207).


I144
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Hoffman, Wickham, Leisure hours in Russia. London: George Bell & Sons, 1883. 184pp.

Secretary of the American legation in St Petersburg in the years 1877-82, Hoffman (1821-1900) spent most of his leisure hours translating poems from the Swedish of the Finnish poet Runeberg, but also wrote an essay on St Petersburg and another on Russian superstitions that first appeared in Penn’s monthly magazine (pp. 1-29).


I145
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Seebohm, Henry, Siberia in Asia: a visit to the valley of the Yenesay in east Siberia; with descriptions of the natural history, migration of birds, etc. London: John Murray, 1882. xviii+304pp.

In early March 1877 Seebohm set out with the Arctic explorer Joseph Wiggins (see I120) on a journey to more distant parts of Siberia, travelling initially by train to Nizhnii Novgorod and then onwards by sledge. On 23 April they reached Wiggins’s ship the Thames, on which they were to sail along the Enisei until it was wrecked early in July. Seebohm was obliged to return overland, reaching St Petersburg on 23 September and England on 10 October. After his death Seebohm’s two books were published together as Birds of Siberia (1901).


I146
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Whishaw, James, The memoirs of James Whishaw. Edited by Maxwell S. Leigh. London: Methuen, 1935. viii+303pp.

Born in Archangel, Whishaw (1853-1933), scion of a British family resident in Russia since the reign of Catherine II, was taken at the age of six months to England, where he was brought up and educated. His real memoirs of Russia begin on his return to pursue a business career in 1877. He took Russian citizenship in 1884 and later become British vice-consul and a highly respected figure in St Petersburg. He left with his family in October 1917 and eventually regained British citizenship. His memoirs are invaluable for descriptions of the life of the British colony in St Petersburg, and in particular, its sporting pursuits (pp. 17-25, 58-205, 219-88).


I147
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Whishaw, Frederick James (Fred), Out of doors in Tsarland: a record of the seeings and doings of a wanderer in Russia. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1893. vii+380pp.

Fred Whishaw (1854-1934) was born into a family of British merchants established in Russia since the late eighteenth century. He joined the family firm, but enjoyed hunting and fishing more. He returned soon after his marriage in 1880 to England, where he wrote over thirty novels for boys, most with a Russian setting.


I148
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Whishaw, Frederick James (Fred), The romance of the woods. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1895. 298pp.

Series of essays and sketches on hunting and folk-lore, such as ‘After ducks on Ladoga’ and ‘The folk-lore of the moujik’. No dates.


I149
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'Daily News', The war correspondence of the ‘Daily News’, 1877, with a connecting narrative forming a continuous history of the war between Russia and Turkey to the fall of Kars, including the letters of Mr Archibald Forbes, Mr J[anuarius] A[loysius] Macgahan and many other special correspondents in Europe and Asia. London: Macmillan & Co., 1877. 627pp. [2nd edition, 1878: The war correspondence...; containing a full description of the taking of Kars. 643pp.] — The war correspondence of the ‘Daily News’, 1877-8, continued from the fall of Kars to the signature of the preliminaries of peace; with a connecting narrative forming a continuous history of the war between Russia and Turkey. London: Macmillan & Co., 1878. xvi+599pp.

The re-publishing of the reports, “hastily written in the bivouvac, on the field of victory, or in some hovel on the line of retreat”, filed by no less than seventeen international correspondents during the Russo-Turkish conflict of 1877-78, some of whom, such as Forbes and MacGahan, were to publish their own reports and reminiscences.


I150
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Greene, Francis Vinton, The Russian army and its campaigns in Turkey in 1877-1878. London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1879. xv+459pp.

Military attaché to the American legation in St Petersburg (1877-79) and a lieutenant in the engineers, but later achieving the rank of major general, Greene (1850-1921) attempts to provide a professional assessment of the Russian army and to narrate the events of the Russo-Turkish war which he had been sent from America to observe.


I151
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Greene, Francis Vinton, Sketches of army life in Russia. London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1881. 326pp.

Greene’s follow-up to his previous book is his attempt to provide for a wider readership an insight into the life and mentality of the Russian soldier. It is also notable for chapters on the American and British reporters of the Russo-Turkish war, particularly MacGahan and Forbes, and on St Petersburg.


I152
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Forbes, Archibald, Souvenirs of some continents. London: Macmillan & Co., 1885. 332pp.

Correspondent of the Daily News during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, Forbes (1838-1900) includes chapters relating to that period – on General Skobelev (pp. 1-46), his American colleague MacGahan (pp. 120-40), and his interview of Alexander II during the war (pp. 199-204). Later included in his Memories and studies of war and peace (1895), pp. 14-37, 361-66.


I153
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[Herbert, Frederick William von], The defence of Plevna, 1877. Written by one who took part in it. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1895. xvii+488pp. [2nd condensed edition with an introduction by General Sir John French, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1911.]

Captain Herbert, a British citizen of Anglo-German descent, joined the Turkish army in February 1877 as a seventeen-year-old lieutenant. He provides a vivid account of the battles in which he took part until his capture by the Russians at the fall of Plevna on 10 December 1877.


I154
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Macpherson, R.B., Under the red crescent: or, ambulance adventures in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co.; Edinburgh and Glasgow: John Menzies & Co., 1885. 213pp.

Like the preceding work by Herbert, this account by a Scottish surgeon with the Turkish army is obviously not russocentric but included to give a more rounded picture of British involvement in the conflict.


I155
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Stanley, Francis, St. Petersburg to Plevna: containing interviews with leading Russian statesmen and generals. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1878. vi+246pp.

Appointed special war correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, Stanley left England on 16 May 1877 to conduct his first interviews with, among others, Prince Petr Shuvalov and Admiral Greig in St Petersburg before proceeding to Bucharest to join the Russian army and numerous other correspondents, to whose published accounts of the campaign and the fall of Plevna his provides an interesting and often divergent variant.


I156
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McCosh, John, Grand tours in many lands: a poem in ten cantos. London: Remington and Co., 1881. xii+292pp.

An eccentric poetic addition to commentaries on the Russo-Turkish war, the fall of Plevna and capture of Kars by a Scottish doctor and noted amateur photographer (1805-85), who had been in the Indian medical service (1831-56) and travelled extensively around the Mediterranean. ‘The war of the czar’ occupies cantos VI-X (pp. 155-290).


I157
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Dillon, Emile Joseph, Russia today & yesterday. London & Toronto: J.M. Dent and sons, 1929. xii+338pp.

The lapsed Irish Catholic Dr Dillon (1854-1933) arrived in Russia in 1877 and remained virtually throughout the whole of the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II. In the opening chapters of this book, describing his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1928, he recalls his early career in Russia, graduating from Petersburg university, becoming professor of comparative philology at the university of Kharkov, and editing an Odessa newspaper (pp. 1-36) (see also [[In the Lands of the Romanovs: An Annotated Bibliography of First-hand English-language Accounts of the Russian Empire (1613-1917)/Reign of Alexander III (1881-1894)
  1. J89|J89]], K5)


I158
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Young, John Russell, Around the world with General Grant: a narrative of the visit of General U.S. Grant, ex-president of the United States to various countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa in 1877, 1878, 1879. To which are added certain conversations with General Grant on questions connected with American politics and history. New York: American News Co., 1879. 734pp.

Young (1832-1901), a journalist for the New York Herald and later Librarian of Congress, acted as secretary to former president Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) on a world tour that took them to St Petersburg and Moscow in July-August 1878 (pp. 464-94).


I159
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Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, The voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, with a historical review of previous journeys along the north coast of the Old World. Translated [from the Swedish] by Alexander Leslie. London: Macmillan & Co., 1881. 2 vols.

The Swedish explorer (1832-1901), who had travelled as far as the Enisei in 1875 and 1876, interleaves the account of his new expedition with much material on earlier exploration from the sixteenth century onwards. The Vega left Tromsö on 21 July 1878, sailed across the Murman and Kara seas to the Enisei; they wintered among the Chukchis, until, released from the ice on 18 July 1878, they passed through the Bering Strait en route to Japan, where they arrived on 2 September 1879 (vol. I, pp. 1-524; II, pp. 1-295).


I160
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Christie, James, Men and things Russian; or, holiday travels in the lands of the czar. Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, Carlisle: Charles Thurnam & Sons, and London: Hamilton, 1879. viii+216pp.

Acting chaplain to H.M. Forces and minister of the Presbyterian Church, Fisher Street, Carlisle, Rev. Christie spent the month of August 1878 on a holiday tour that took him from St Petersburg to Moscow, Nizhnii Novgorod, Kazan, Kiev and on to Warsaw.


I161
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Nasir al-Din Shah, A diary kept by His Majesty the Shah of Persia, during his journey to Europe in 1878. From the Persian by Albert Houtum Schindler and Baron Louis de Norman. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1879. 306pp.

The second European tour by the shah (see I116) took him from Teheran to the Russian border, where he was met by Prince Menshikov on 4 July 1878. He travelled to St Petersburg via Erevan, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz, Ukraine and Moscow. He left for Berlin via Warsaw. As on his previous journey, the shah was particularly taken with theatrical and variety performances (pp. 51-122). On his return journey, he crossed from Austria into Russian territory beyond Brody and travelled extensively through the Caucasus and Daghestan, visiting the house in Taganrog where Alexander I died (pp. 275-306).


I162
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Edwards, Henry Sutherland, The Russians at home and the Russians abroad: sketches, unpolitical and political, of Russian life under Alexander II. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1879. 2 vols.

Eighteen years after publishing The Russians at home (see I34), Edwards re-issued it in an abridged version as a first volume followed by a second, devoted explicitly to “political” matters. In a series of chapters based largely on articles he had written for newspapers in earlier years, he examines such questions as nihilism, panslavism, and Russian attitudes and policy towards Poland, Central Asia, and India.


I163
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Swaine, Leopold Victor, Camp and chancery in a soldier’s life. London: John Murray, 1926. xii+262pp.

Major-General Sir Leopold (b. 1840), when a colonel, was sent to the St Petersburg embassy as military attaché at the very beginning of 1879, but remained less than five months before he returned to London and was soon transferred to Constantinople. His memories of those months are confined to embassy and court anecdotes (pp. 89-105).


I164
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Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquis of, The life of the marquis of Dufferin and Ava. By Sir Alfred Lyall. London: John Murray, 1905. 2 vols.

Petersburg was Lord Dufferin’s (1826-1902) first ambassadorship and he served there from February 1879 until April 1881. This authorized biography contains extracts from his letters and diaries during this period, including, most vividly, his account of the assassination of the tsar (vol. I, pp. 288-324). Also included are ‘Some recollections of service with Lord Dufferin at the St Petersburg embassy’ by one of the attachés, R.J. Kennedy (vol. I, pp. 325-58).


I165
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Dufferin and Ava, Hariot, My Russian and Turkish journals. London: John Murray, 1916. 350pp.

The delightful diaries of Lady Dufferin, née Hamilton (1843-1916), contain all the minutiae of embassy and Petersburg social life lacking in her husband’s (published) diaries (pp. 1-123).


I166
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O’Donovan, Edmond, The Merv oasis: travels and adventures east of the Caspian during the years 1879-80-81, including five months’ residence among the Tekkés of Merv. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1882. 2 vols.

Special correspondent for the Daily News, O’Donovan (1844-83) offered his two large volumes as “a simple record of my wanderings around and beyond the Caspian”, which began on 6 February 1879 with his arrival in Batumi and led to Tiflis and Baku, across the Caspian to Krasnovodsk, and on into Persia (vol. I, pp. 1-142).


I167
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[Hamilton, Frederic], The vanished pomps of yesterday, being some random reminiscences of a British diplomat. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919. 375pp.

Lord Hamilton (1865-1956), a career diplomat, was transferred from Potsdam to Petersburg in 1880, serving under Dufferin and his successor Sir Edward Thornton until his transfer to Portugal in 1883. His lively memoirs contain much on the social life in the capital and his prowess as a hunter, as well as marking events such as the assassination of Alexander II (pp. 83-217). Hamilton paid two subsequent short visits to Petersburg in 1910 and 1912, which he recalls briefly in a few nostalgic pages (pp. 354-64).


I168
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Hamilton, Frederic, The days before yesterday. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920. 320pp.

In his second volume of memoirs, now appearing under his name, Hamilton recalls his enthusiasm for amateur theatricals cultivated in diplomatic circles in St Petersburg (pp. 213-19). He also describes seeing Alexander II’s assassins on their way to execution (pp. 226-27).


I169
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Hamilton, Frederic, Here, there and everywhere. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1921. xiv+304pp.

In his third and final volume of memoirs, bearing the collective title of My yesterdays, Hamilton describes his trip down the Volga in 1881, accompanied by the French academician, the vicomte de Vogue, author of the influential Le roman russe (pp. 55-59). He also recalls the splendour and costs of the “bals des palmiers” in the Winter Palace (pp. 230-33).


I170
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Baddeley, John Frederick, Russia in the ‘eighties’: sport and politics. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1921. xvi+466pp.

Baddeley (1854-1940), special correspondent of the London Standard throughout the 1880s, paid his first visit to Russia in February 1879 at the invitation of Count Petr Shuvalov, the Russian ambassador in London. True to its sub-title, the book mixes detailed reporting of the politics, both internal and international, of the period with much on the author’s passion for hunting, shooting and fishing with both Russian friends and members of the British community.


I171
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Lansdell, Henry, Through Siberia. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1882. 2 vols.

On 3 May 1879 Rev. Lansdell (1841-1919), intrepid traveller and would-be prison reformer, arrived in St Petersburg, bent on his mission to distribute religious tracts and bibles, particularly in Siberia. Over the next five months he travelled extensively, visiting all the principal towns and commenting not unfavourably on the penal system. He reached Kamchatka and eventually sailed from Vladivostok for San Francisco in September 1879.
I172
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Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Ronald Charles, My reminiscences. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1883. 2 vols.

Sculptor and art connoisseur, Lord Gower (1845-1916) arrived in St Petersburg on 2 July 1879 as part of a tour that had begun in Spain. His declared objective was “to see the gallery of paintings in the Winter Palace”, which he did, enthusing over its “chief glory”, the Rembrandts. On 6 July he left for Moscow, which greatly under-impressed him, and back in St Petersburg, he visited Tsarskoe selo, before departing for Berlin on 5 July (vol. II, pp. 294-301).


I173
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Selfridge, Thomas Oliver, Jr., Memoirs of Thomas O. Selfridge, jr., rear admiral, U.S.N. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924. xii+288pp.

Selfridge (1836-1924) first visited Russia in 1879, arriving on 15 July at Cronstadt as commander of the Enterprise. He paid a visit to Grand Duke Constantine, the then head of the Russian navy, and received Alexander II on board his ship on the tsar’s birthday on 30 July (pp. 229-33). In 1896, now a rear-admiral and commanding the Minneapolis, he arrived at Cronstadt on 13 May to represent the American navy at the coronation of Nicholas II, of which he provides a detailed description as well as of the Khodynka stampede of 30 May (pp. 251-74).


I174
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Cushman, Mary Ames, She wrote it all down. New York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936. xi+226pp.

Mrs Cushman (1864-1943) recalls her visit to St Petersburg as a young girl with her family in the winter of 1879 from her travel journals of 1876-80 (pp. 62-68).


I175
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Wood, Charles, Saunterings in Europe. With an introductory note by W.M. Taylor, D.D. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Co., 1882. xiv+346pp.

A young New York pastor (1851-1936) spent three years studying at Berlin University, broken by travels to other parts of Europe. He left Berlin for Moscow in December 1879 and spent time in St Petersburg, enjoying above all the ice-hills (pp. 204-39).


I176
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Kendig, John A.J., Sketches of travel: the East, the Far East, and some of the by-paths thither. Chicago: Chicago Legal News Co., 1882. 279pp.

An Illinois lawyer (1834-96) included a few weeks in Russia in January 1880 as part of a conventional round-the-world tour. From Russian Finland he travelled to St Petersburg via Cronstadt and then proceeded to Moscow, which he hailed as the most beautiful city in Europe, and Nizhnii Novgorod (pp. 40-42, 49-57).


I177
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Stoddard, John Lawson, Red-letter days abroad. Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1884. xvi+202pp.

Popular author-lecturer (1850-1931) describes, with numerous engravings, “the cities of the czar”, St Petersburg and Moscow, during a visit in 1880 (pp. 105-202). The Russian material was later incorporated into his John L. Stoddard’s lectures, VI (1900), p. 227-336.


I178
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Rae, Edward, The White Sea peninsula: a journey in Russian Lapland and Karelia. London: John Murray, 1881. xviii+347pp.

Rae, once again accompanied by H.P. Brandeth (see I127), sailed from England on 31 May 1880, aiming to reach Kola in Russian Lapland, from where they would travel down to Kem. They visited the Solovetskii monastery and sailed across the White Sea, following the coast around the peninsular. It was at Kola that Rae organized a most extraordinary “international” cricket match (pp. 292-96).


I179
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‘Wanderer’ (pseudonym of D’Avigdor, Elim Henry), Notes on the Caucasus. London: Macmillan & Co., 1883. viii+280pp.

Although frequently specific about time of day or day of the month, there are no indications of years in this account of journeys through the Caucasus. D’Avigdor (1841-95), of mixed Italian and Anglo-Jewish parentage and an engineer by profession, but a prolific writer on varied subjects in his later years, writes of “having passed upwards of a year in Circassia” and having “myself travelled, often quite alone, all over the Western Caucasus and the southern provinces, also in Circassia, and have been twice to the Caspian”


I180
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Foster, John Watson, Diplomatic memoirs. London: Constable & Co., 1910. 2 vols.

Indiana lawyer Foster (1836-1917) presented his credentials as American envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Alexander II on 10 June 1880. He was in St Petersburg during the trials of the nihilists that began in November and at the time of the tsar’s assassination in March 1881. He presented his new credentials to Alexander III in May 1881, but resigned from the diplomatic service for family reasons in November (pp. 146-215). He was, however, persuaded to undertake a second special mission to Russia in May 1897 as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to carry to represent the American case in the dispute with Britain over the protection of fur-seals in the Bering Sea. During his two-week stay he had two audiences with Nicholas II and met Witte (pp. 216-34).
I180a
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Friis, Jens Andreas, The monastery of Petschenga: sketches of Russian Lapland (from historical and legendary sources). Translated by Hill Repp. London: Elliot Stock, 1896. [viii]+91pp.

Friis (1821-96), professor of Sami languages at the university of Christiania and author of a Lapp grammar (1856), paid many visits to Russian Lapland, which inform the generalized ‘travel’ first chapter to his historical account of the Pechenga monastery (pp. 1-9). The original, Klosteret i Petschenga: skildringer fra Russisk Lapland, appeared in 1884.


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