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by Edited by Detlev Von Uexkull
| Hardback in Very Good condition in a Good Dust Jacket. Light foxing on page edges. Dust Jacket worn with some loss to top/bottom of spine, several small nicks and tears in edges of jacket, edges rubbed, price clipped.
First published in England 1966 by Martin Secker & Warburg Limited, London. Translated by Joel Carmichael. 320 pages. 14.7cm x 22.1cm.
Jacket design by: E.C. Powers.
Never before published, this is an account, by someone who was actually present, of Napoleon's fateful Russian campaign. The young Boris von Uxkull was an Esthonian nobleman attached to the Russian headquarters staff. He was a valiant soldier and a patriot, but he was able to perceive the darker sides and the paradoxes of war.
Altogether, he took part in seventeen battles, first with the rank of Cornet, and later rising to Lieutenant. He was a member of the Allied Armies that entered Paris in 1814, and he took a full part in the life of gallantry that succeeded the harder life of wartime officer. But Uxkull had never been obsessed by his military duties to the exclusion of all else, even during the hardest campaigns, and some of his amorous adventures en route bring Casanova to mind.
The second part of these diaries, covering the years 1818 to 1819, describes one of the greatest amorous adventures in Uxkull's life, which began when he was studying philosophy in Heidelberg after his release from the army. With eighteen-year-old Helene, he travels down the Danube, through Linz to Vienna, in an idyll of love and discovery. But, for Uxkull, even the best things must have an end, and he breaks with Helene on returning to Germany. leaving her to continue his studies. His life thereafter, sketched out by his descendant, Dr Detlev von Uexkull, in a short epilogue, was full of travel, further adventures, and of forward - looking practical experiments in estate management and agriculture on his estates in Esthonia.
The diaries make fascinating reading, and they have great value, not only as contemporary history, but as a window onto the mind of a nineteenth-century romantic, a vigorous and exceptional young man at the prime of his life. Comparison with Boswell can hardly be avoided.
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Publisher: Secker & Warburg
ISBN:
Condition: VG / G |
1966
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| Postage & Handling to UK mainland: £3.50 | Price: £5.00
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