"Aksakoff's books are remarkable, first of all, on this ground: you will find in them no trace of creative or inventive power."

I suppose myself that he derived his information chiefly from his mother; but there are certainly scenes in the book which he cannot have owed to this source.

This translation has been made from the Moscow edition of 1900. I should say here: (1) that I have abridged some of the topographical detail at the beginning of the book; (2) that I have dealt freely with the Notes which Aksakoff added, sometimes promoting them to the text, and sometimes omitting them wholly or in part. I know of two previous translations. A German translation, Russische Familienchronik, by Sergius Raczynski, was published at Leipzig in 1858. This seems to me a good translation, and I have found it useful in some difficulties. An English translation "by a Russian Lady" was published at Calcutta in 1871; and there is a copy in the British Museum. I have not seen this; but I have heard that it is inadequate, and the first few sentences, which were copied out for me, seem to bear this out.

I have completed a translation of Aksakoff's remaining book of Memoirs—his Recollections of school and college; and I hope that it may be published after a short interval.

J. D. DUFF.

Cambridge.

Jan. 11, 1917.

CONTENTS

A RUSSIAN GENTLEMAN