This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Two young American veterans set out across the Atlantic in the aftermath of the Civil War, turning a journey to Russia into both a personal adventure and a meditation on emancipation, memory, and national change. From the rough crossing to Brest and the bright allure of Paris, the narrative delights in shipboard comedy, where businessmen, actresses, clergy, tourists, and talkative eccentrics form a floating society of wit, games, and fleeting friendships. Once ashore, the letters shift into the pleasures of Parisian life—French lessons, theater, carriage rides, the Louvre, Versailles, and the opera—while the traveler weighs plans for a winter journey farther east. The story then moves into Russia, where Moscow and St. Petersburg unfold in scenes of Christmas trees, midnight services, sleighs, skating parties, masquerades, public balls, baths, stables, and glittering high society. With humor and sharp observation, the writer contrasts Russian customs with American habits while remaining captivated by the grandeur of the Kremlin, the bustle of the capital, and the excitement of travel. Throughout, affectionate family correspondence, military and expatriate circles, and warm recollections of figures like General de Trobriand give the memoir its intimate, cosmopolitan heart.

À propos de l'auteur

Appleton, Nathan

Nathan Appleton was an American writer and observer of public life whose reputation rests on his sharp-eyed reflections on Europe, diplomacy, and the changing social world of the nineteenth century. Born into a prominent New England family, he moved in circles shaped by commerce, politics, and reform, and he brought that practical, transatlantic outlook to his writing. His best-known work emerged from direct experience abroad, where he recorded the customs, institutions, and everyday realities of Russian society with a mix of curiosity, candor, and careful attention to detail. Rather than simply describing a foreign country, he used travel writing to ask larger questions about power, modernization, class, and the ways nations understand themselves and one another. That makes his work still relevant today, especially in an age when readers are alert to cultural misunderstanding, international tension, and the challenge of seeing beyond stereotypes. Appleton’s legacy lies in his ability to turn observation into insight: he reminds modern readers that travel literature can be both informative and deeply revealing about the observer as well as the observed. Readers who enjoy history, diplomacy, social commentary, and thoughtful accounts of life in other cultures will find him especially rewarding.