'I know no one. I don't speak the language. The city has a reputation for being dangerous. I've become addicted to this scenario, to the thrill of travelling alone and watching how I deal with the terrors of a strange place. But this time it's different: Ada, a curator at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, is meeting me. At least I hope to god she's meeting me.' With its shimmering palaces and decaying mansions, enchanted forests and basements crammed full of Soviet art, St Petersburg is a city of ghosts and illusions where past and present, and reality and fiction are inextricably fused. In this city blasted by history it is not the grand events but the intimate details that Victoria Hammond is drawn to: a walk through Dostoevsky's streets on a white night; the friendship between a mafia boss and a Siberian tiger; a swim in the warmth of a moonlit Russian lake; stories of struggling artists and dignified intellectuals eking out existences in single rooms. Beautifully written, strange and evocative, Letters from St Petersburg is a compelling account of one woman's journey to the mysterious and surprising heart of behind Russia.

The Marquis de Custine's unique perspective on a vast, fascinating country in the grip of oppressive tyranny In 1839, encouraged by his friend Balzac, Custine set out to explore Russia. His impressions turned into what is perhaps the greatest and most influential of all books about Russia under the Tsars. Rich in anecdotes as much about the court of Tsar Nicholas as the streets of St Petersburg, Custine is as brilliant writing about the Kremlin as he is about the great northern landscapes. An immediate bestseller on publication, Custine's book is also a central book for any discussion of 19th century history, as - like de Tocqueville's Democracy in America - it dramatizes far broader questions about the nature of government and society.

Written and set on the banks of the Neva, St Petersburg Dialogues is a startlingly relevant analysis of the human prospect in the twenty-first century. As the literary critic George Steiner has remarked, "the age of the Gulag and of Auschwitz, of famine and ubiquitous torture ... nuclear threat, the ecological laying waste of our planet, the leap of endemic, possibly pandemic, illness out of the very matrix of libertarian progress" is exactly what Joseph de Maistre foretold. In the Dialogues Maistre addressed a number of topics that are discussed briefly or not at all in his other works already available in English. These include an apologetic for traditional Christian beliefs about providence, reflections on the social role of the public executioner and the "divinity" of war, a critique of John Locke's sensationalist psychology, meditations on prayer and sacrifice, and a mini-course on "illuminism." The literary form is that of the "philosophical conversation" – one that allowed Maistre to be deliberately provocative and to indulge his taste for paradox, a "methodical extravagance" that he judged particularly appropriate for the eighteenth-century salon. Translator and editor Richard Lebrun provides a full scholarly edition of this classic work, complete with an introduction, chronology, critical bibliography, and generous explanatory notes. The Dialogues will be of interest to scholars of literary history as well as the history of ideas.

Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter the Great, St. Petersburg's dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly cemented by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers. This city, in its successive incarnations—St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and, once again, St. Petersburg—has always been a place of perpetual contradiction.It was a window to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of Russia’s unique glory was also created here: its literature, music, dance, and, for a time, its political vision. It gave birth to the artistic genius of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, Pavlova and Nureyev. Yet, for all its glittering palaces, fairytale balls and enchanting gardens, the blood of thousands has been spilt on its snow-filled streets.It has been a hotbed of war and revolution, a place of siege and starvation, and the crucible for Lenin and Stalin’s power-hungry brutality. In St. Petersburg, Jonathan Miles recreates the drama of three hundred years in this paradoxical and brilliant city, bringing us up to the present day, when its fate hangs in the balance once more.

Pushkin's palaces or Dostoevsky's slums? Many a modern-day visitor to St. Petersburg has one or, more likely, both of these images in mind when setting foot in this stage set-like setting for some of the world's most treasured literary masterpieces. What they overlook is the vast uncharted territory in between. In Mapping St. Petersburg, Julie Buckler traces the evolution of Russia's onetime capital from a "conceptual hierarchy" to a living cultural system--a topography expressed not only by the city's physical structures but also by the literary texts that have helped create it. By favoring noncanonical works and "underdescribed spaces," Buckler seeks to revise the literary monumentalization of St. Petersburg--with Pushkin and Dostoevsky representing two traditional albeit opposing perspectives--to offer an off-center view of a richer, less familiar urban landscape. She views this grand city, the product of Peter the Great's ambitious vision, not only as a geographical entity but also as a network of genres that carries historical and cultural meaning. We discover the busy, messy "middle ground" of this hybrid city through an intricate web of descriptions in literary works; nonfiction writings such as sketches, feuilletons, memoirs, letters, essays, criticism; and urban legends, lore, songs, and social practices--all of which add character and depth to this refurbished imperial city.

IN offering to English and American readers this abridged edition of The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, my introduction must of necessity take the form of some justification of my curtailments and excisions. The motives which led to this undertaking, and the reasons for my mode of procedure, may be stated in a few words. In 1900 I published a volume dealing with Tchaikovsky, which was, I believe, the first attempt to embody in book form all the literatureÑscattered through the byways of Russian journalismÑconcerning the composer of the Pathetic Symphony. In the course of a year or twoÑthe book having sold out in England and AmericaÑa proposal was made to me to prepare a new edition. Meanwhile, however, the authorised Life and Letters, compiled and edited by the composerÕs brother, Modeste Ilich Tchaikovsky, was being issued in twenty-five parts by P. I. Jurgenson, of Moscow. This original Russian edition was followed almost immediately by a German translation, published in Leipzig by the same firm. In November, 1901, the late P. I. Jurgenson approached me on the subject of a translation, but his negotiations with an American firm eventually fell through. He then requested me to find, if possible, an English publisher willing to take up the book. Both in England and America the public interest in Tchaikovsky seemed to be steadily increasing. Frequent calls for copies of my small bookÑby this time out of printÑtestified that this was actually the case. An alternative course now lay before me: to revise my own book, with the help of the material furnished by the authorised Life and Letters, or to take in hand an English translation of the latter. The first would have been the less arduous and exacting task; on the other hand, there was no doubt in my mind as to the greater value and importance of Modeste TchaikovskyÕs work. The simplestÑand in many ways most satisfactoryÑcourse seemed at first to be the translation of the Russian edition in its entirety. Closer examination, however, revealed the fact that out of the 3,000 letters included in this book a large proportion were addressed to persons quite unknown to the English and American publics; while at the same time it contained a mass of minute and almost local particulars which could have very little significance for readers unversed in every detail of Russian musical life.Ê