[Letter to an Unknown Recipient Concerning the Manuscript of St. Petersburg Book]
first edition
by RAIKES Thomas (1777-1840)
{Paris, France}: Rue des Saussaies,No 10, 4 December1937. . 8vo, wove paper, no watermark Thomas Raikes, a school friend of Beau Brummel, and a Dandy in his own right, is writing to an unknown recipient asking him to read his manuscript, saying that he had twice tried to find him at his hotel in Paris, without success and is now writing to him in London,"My friend Chas Greville suggested to me some months ago that I should compile into a book certain notes which I made during my stay at Petersburg in 1830 and I have accordingly sent to him for publication a book, which he is pleased to style very interesting, but upon which before it goes to the press, I am exceedingly anxious to have your candid and enlightened opinion, as a friend...So little has been written on the subject of Russia for many years that I believe there are many descriptions & anecdotes in this little work which will be new to the public, and as the power is daily becoming an object of greater interest, perhaps of disquiet in Europe, I have been unavoidably drawn into a cursory review of those political circumstances which have given a new tendency to the view of Russia, particularly in the East. "it was impossible to touch on this subject without alluding to the foreign policy of our present government, which has been eminently instrumental in bringing about the approaching crisis now big with anxiety for English interests...."He asks his correspondent to give him any hints and if he thinks the manuscript worthy to show it to "Mr. [John] Murray", He mentions that he has already spoken to Bentley, " but his terms are too low for me to accept them."Accept them he apparently did, for the first edition of "A visit to St. Petersburg, in the winter of 1829-30," was, in fact, published by Bentley! (Inventory #: 2754)