Description
Pre-owned. A granddaughter of both Queen Victoria and the Tzar Alexander II, the young girl grew up equally familiar with the court life of Russia and of England, where the family made its residence. Her pictures of childish days in England, and at Malta, where her father, ‘The Sailor Prince,’ was stationed, are overflowing with life and high spirits and filled with brilliant portraits of men and women, then in their youth, who were later to play their part in the tragic days of the War. Her descriptions of life at the Imperial Russian Court, of the coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra, of winter festivities in St. Petersburg are unforgettable, as are the pages in which she tells of her marriage at seventeen to Ferdinand, heir apparent of Roumania (became known as Romania around the year 1975), and her life in the strange, almost mythic country over which she was to rule – with his white-haired poet queen and stern ascetic king. Great names stud the pages of this book. Great men and women – and some not so great but just as fascinating – flash through its chapters, seen, not as ‘personages,’ but as human beings with all their faults and foibles. It is the picture of a lost world – the stupendous imperial world of Europe which is at an end; a society that is dead with a time which has been wiped off the face of the earth. Here is the intimate self-revelation of a woman and a queen. Condition Good. No Jacket. Front hinge just starting. Ink name and date on front endpaper. xiv, 615, [1] pp. 8vo.. Donated and valued by an accredited Antiquarian Book Dealer. Hardcover. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York City 1934