The authentic eye-witness account of a young English governess in St Petersburg (Petrograd) during the Russian revolution of 1917 – with over 30 photographs – edited by Muriel delaHaye. Miss Daisy’s secret day-to-day diary reveals the trials and dilemmas of her life and that of her two sisters, May and Ida, also employed as English governesses. Daisy, known as the tomboy of the family, loved dancing and excelled at the very energetic Russian dance. In 1917 she is employed by the daughter and grandchildren of the Naval Minister, Ivan Constantin Grigorovitch, living at the Naval College on Vasilevski Island which is attacked and ransacked by the Bolsheviks. She is imprisoned with the children in the cellars until she makes known she holds a British passport. She is then isolated in a strange house alone with the children who have chickenpox, at the mercy of marauding Red Army soldiers who are searching for weapons. May, known as ‘the bookworm’, is employed by the Swedish-Russian engineering representative for Scandinavia, living in Terijoki, Finland, where even here the Red Guards plunder what they can. Ida, a true romantic who loves to flirt and has many admirers, is in the most dangerous situation, employed by the stepson of Grand duke Paul (the Tsar’s uncle) and his wife Aylia (sister of the infamous Anna Verubova, close friend of the Tsarina and Rasputin). When Aylia escapes to Copenhagen, Ida is left alone in their apartment with the children until she agrees to make the dangerous journey to reunite them with their mother. She is interviewed by Lenin before given permission to leave. As the terrors of the October 1917 revolution approach with food shortages, strikes and protest marches, each sister is faced with a dilemma: they don’t have enough money to get back to England. The discovery of a last letter from the Tsarina to her friend Anna which mentions ‘Miss Ida’ prompted the publication of this diary. Since 2017 is the centenary of the Russian revolution, a great many memories of this event will be forthcoming and of interest to young and old alike.

Would it surprise you to learn that there was a contemporary of Ernest Hemingway’s who, in his romantic questing and hell-or-high-water pursuit of life and his art, was closer to the Hemingwayesque ideal than Hemingway himself? Almost Hemingway relates the life of Negley Farson, adventurer, iconoclast, best-selling writer, foreign correspondent, and raging alcoholic who died in oblivion. Born only a few years before Hemingway, Farson had a life trajectory that paralleled and intersected Hemingway’s in ways that compelled writers for publications as divergent as the Guardian and Field & Stream to compare them. Unlike Hemingway, however, Farson has been forgotten. This high-flying and literate biography recovers Farson’s life in its multifaceted details, from his time as an arms dealer to Czarist Russia during World War I, to his firsthand reporting on Hitler and Mussolini, to his assignment in India, where he broke the news of Gandhi’s arrest by the British, to his excursion to Kenya a few years before the Mau Mau Uprising. Farson also found the time to publish an autobiography, The Way of a Transgressor, which made him an international publishing sensation in 1936, as well as Going Fishing, one of the most enduring of all outdoors books. F. Scott Fitzgerald, a fellow member of the Lost Generation whose art competed with a public image grander than reality, once confessed that while he had to rely on his imagination, Farson could simply draw from his own event-filled life. Almost Hemingway is the definitive window on that remarkable story.

Satan comes to Soviet Moscow in this critically acclaimed translation of one of the most important and best-loved modern classics in world literature. The Master and Margarita has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin’s time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov’s masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love. In The Master and Margarita, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. The Master and Margarita combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged “brilliant” by Publishers Weekly. Praise for The Master and Margarita “A wild surrealistic romp. . . . Brilliantly flamboyant and outrageous.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The Detroit News “Fine, funny, imaginative. . . . The Master and Margarita stands squarely in the great Gogolesque tradition of satiric narrative.” —Saul Maloff, Newsweek “A rich, funny, moving and bitter novel. . . . Vast and boisterous entertainment.” —The New York Times “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant. . . . A great work.” —Chicago Tribune “Funny, devilish, brilliant satire. . . . It’s literature of the highest order and . . . it will deliver a full measure of enjoyment and enlightenment.” —Publishers Weekly

Veronica is an aspiring historian living in present-day Los Angeles when she meets a mysterious man who may be heir to the Russian throne. As she sets about investigating the legitimacy of his claim through a winding path of romance and deception, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. Lena, a servant in the imperial Russian court of 1902, is approached by the desperate Empress Alexandra. After conceiving four daughters, the Empress is determined to sire a son and believes Lena can help her. Charlotte, a former ballerina living in World War II occupied Paris, receives a surprise visit from a German officer. Determined to protect her son from the Nazis, Charlotte escapes the city, but not before learning that the officer's interest in her stems from his longstanding obsession with the fate of the Russian monarchy.