Lot 38
Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)
Illustrated manuscript journal of a voyage to Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, 1829
Auction: The Library of General Sir James Alexander | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 31 to 62
Description
4to (19.7 x 16cm), contemporary parchment binding, [65] ff., written in black ink on rectos and versos, approx. 28 lines per page, in tête-bêche format with a chronological narrative ([40] ff.) at front and thematic notes ([25] ff.) at rear, some 40 pen-and-ink sketches in text, including views (e.g. Heligoland, ‘Reval’, i.e. Tallin), objects of interest, local characters, in addition to 2 full pages of multiple sketches (depicting various stringed instruments and local costume), Alexander's ownership inscription ‘James Edward Alexander, 16th Lancers’ to front free endpaper, his manuscript note explaining the purpose of the journal tipped to front pastedown, the journal describing Alexander's voyage from England to St Petersburg via Hamburg, Tallin and Kronstadt, with a lengthy account of St Petersburg (including visits to the mint, arsenal, museum of the Academy of Sciences, the Hermitage and Winter Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk Palace, and the military camp at Krasnoye Selo ('Crasnecelo') and encounters with residents including ‘Orloffskiy … the most celebrated painter in St Petersburgh' (i.e. Aleksander Orłowski, 1777-1832), Sir James Wylie (British doctor to the tsar), and others, the thematic notes at rear including observations and illustrative anecdotes of Russian culture, military matters (e.g. ‘Count Wittgenstein was terribly annoyed last campaign. He received such contradictory orders …’), trade, manners, and music, ‘Antient Russ Mythologies’, and events including a recent series of murders ('several women were found … opposite the English quay'), etc.
Together with: Alexander's personal copy of his published account of the journey, Travels to the Seat of War in the East, through Russia and the Crimea, in 1829, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830 (2 volumes, 8vo, contemporary half calf, Alexander's ownership inscriptions to front free endpapers, his name ‘Captain J. E. Alexander’ gilt-stamped to foot of each spine, engraved frontispiece, folding map, 11 aquatints of which 3 hand-coloured, 2 etched plates, Abbey Travel 229); another sketchbook, 8vo (17.8 x 12.5cm), contemporary blue half roan, containing [23] pp. of sketches variously in pen-and-ink (several of these with watercolour) or pencil, including various scenes of Balaclava, Inkerman, and Kharkov (modern Kharkiv, in Ukraine); and a Russian passport issued to Alexander permitting travel from Simferopol to Sevastopol, 1829 (4)
Provenance
THE LIBRARY OF GENERAL SIR JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER (1803-1885)
Footnote
This journal was apparently one of several Alexander kept during his travels through Russia until his temporary imprisonment by Russian forces at Sevastopol on grounds of suspected espionage. It covers events described up to about the fifth chapter of volume one (a visit to the Russian camp at Krasnoye Selo) in his published account, Travels to the Seat of War in the East, through Russia and the Crimea, in 1829 (1830), but appears to differ substantially from the printed text.