Through Savage Europe. Being the Narrative of a Journey (Undertaken as Special Correspondent of the "Westminster Gazette"), through the Balkan States and European Russia.

DE WINDT, Harry Willes Darell.

Published by London: Unwin Brothers Limited, The Gresham Press for T. Fisher Unwin, 1907., 1907

8vo (220 x 144mm), pp. 300, [4 (publisher's advertisements)]; title printed in red and black, half-tone portrait frontispiece after Milan Jovanovitch, retaining tissue guard, and 96 half-tone plates after De Windt, Jovanovitch, Arangelovitch, et al.; slip stating that discounts are not permissible tipped onto half-title; margins with minimal light browning and occasional short tears caused by clumsy opening; original pictorial dark-blue cloth gilt, upper board lettered in gilt and with design of a Don Cossack derived from the plate opposite p. 270, blind-ruled border, spine lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut; light offsetting on endpapers, extremities slightly bumped, otherwise a very good copy.First edition. An account of a journey across the Balkans undertaken in 1906 by the Anglo-French traveller and writer Harry De Windt (1856-1933, who travelled as the Special Correspondent of the Westminster Gazette), and the cinematographer Mr Mackenzie of the Urban Bioscope Company, 'a canny Scotsman from Aberdeen, possessed of a keen sense of humour and of two qualities indispensable to a "bioscope" artist assurance and activity' (p. 16). The two men embarked at Trieste for Montenegro, and journeyed from the principality to Herzegovina, and thence through Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Southern Russia, and the Caucasus. De Windt explains his title in the first chapter: 'most Englishmen are less familiar with the geography of the Balkan States than with that of Darkest Africa. This was my case, and I had therefore yet to learn that these same Balkans can boast of cities which are miniature replicas of London and Paris. But these are civilised centres. The remoter districts are, as of yore, hotbeds of outlawry and brigandage, where you must travel with a revolver in each pocket and your life in your hand, and of this fact, as the reader will see, we had tangible and unpleasant proof before the end of the journey. Moreover, do not the now palatial capitals of Servia and Bulgaria occasionally startle the outer world with political crimes of mediaeval barbarity? Witness the assassination of the late King and Queen of Servia and of Monsieur Stambuloff, the Bulgarian Premier. Wherefore the term "savage" is perhaps not wholly inapplicable to that portion of Europe which we are about to traverse, to say nothing of our final destination the eastern shores of the Black Sea' (pp. 15-16).The final three chapters form a sequence titled 'The Red Flag in Russia', which describe the consequences of the 1905 Revolution in Russia and De Windt's experiences of Odessa, Rostov, Vladikavkaz, and Baku.Cross, In the Lands of the Romanovs, K162. Seller Inventory # T3827

Bibliographic Details

Title: Through Savage Europe. Being the Narrative ...
Publisher: London: Unwin Brothers Limited, The Gresham Press for T. Fisher Unwin, 1907.
Publication Date: 1907
Binding: Soft cover
Edition: 1st Edition