Letters from Russia - Couverture souple

Custine, Marquis; Buss, Robin

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 014044548X ISBN 13 : 9780140445480

Editeur : Penguin Classics, 1991

Synopsis

The Marquis de Custine was born in 1790 into an anti-revolutionary background, and brought up in exile by his mother and her lover, Chateaubriand (both his father and grandfather had been guillotined). As a young man he was banished from polite society as a result of a homosexual scandal, but remained a close friend of Stendhal and Balzac and was admired by Baudelaire for his dandyism. In 1835, when de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" became a bestseller, Balzac suggested that Custine should do for European perceptions of Russia what de Tocqueville had done for America. Custine went to Russia a monarchist and legitimist, but returned a constitutionalist. His "Lettres de Russie" (1839) invited comparison with de Tocqueville's "Anatomy of the Astute" .

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The Marquis de Custine's record of his trip to Russia in 1839 is a brilliantly perceptive, even prophetic, account of one of the world's most fascinating and troubled countries. It is also a wonderful piece of travel writing. Custine, who met with people in all walks of life, including the Czar himself, offers vivid descriptions of St. Petersburg and Moscow, of life at court and on the street, and of the impoverished Russian countryside. But together with a wealth of sharply delineated incident and detail, Custine's great work also presents an indelible picture--roundly denounced by both Czarist and Communist regimes--of a country crushed by despotism and "intoxicated with slavery."

Letters from Russia, here published in a new edition prepared by Anka Muhlstein, the author of the Goncourt Prize-winning biography of Custine, stands with Tocqueville's Democracy in America as a profound and passionate encounter with historical forces that are still very much at work in the world today.

Biographie de l'auteur

Astolphe de Custine (1790-1857) was born at the onset of the French Revolution and died under the Second Empire. His father was guillotined and he and his mother barely survived the Terror. A poet and novelist of slight repute, Custine gained recognition with the publication of the travel books Spain under Ferdinand VII and Letters from Russia, an enduring analysis of the roots and character of Russian despotism.

Anka Muhlstein was born in Paris in 1935. She settled in New York in 1974 where she began her career as a writer in French. She was awarded the Goncourt Prize in 1996 for her biography of Custine, and has twice received the History Prize of the French Academy.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Classics
• Date d'édition: 1991
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 014044548X
• ISBN 13: 9780140445480
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 288
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Terminal Video; n.pederzini@terminaldistribuzione.com; ; Via Bruno Buozzi, 24/26,; Granarolo dell'Emilia BO,; Italie