Russian essays and stories

Chapter 3: PREFACE

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About This Book

A collection of travel sketches, essays, and short fiction focused on life and culture in Russia, combining eyewitness travel writing, literary and theatrical criticism, and sketches of popular religion, local administration, and social tensions including anti-Semitism and pogroms. The writer mixes sympathetic observation with skeptical commentary on foreign impressions and political partisanship, and frames many points through conversations, reports, and personal encounters. Short stories intersperse the essays, ranging from mystery to satirical pieces that dramatize social strains. The overall impression is varied and observational rather than doctrinal, offering readable portraits and thoughtful, often ironic, reflections rather than polemic.

PREFACE

THE essays and stories contained in this book are reprinted for the greater part from the Morning Post, by whose kind permission I have been allowed to republish them here. My thanks are also due to the Editor of the Oxford and Cambridge Review for permission to republish the article on Andreev’s Life of Man; and to the Editor of that brilliant but too short-lived periodical the Ne Plus Ultra (published at Eton), for allowing me to make use of a story called “The Amorphists,” which appeared in its columns. My thanks are due to Mr. H. Belloc, who kindly read the proofs of this book for me.