Crosleys book of published letters is a unique and interesting addition to the body of first-hand literature on the Russian Revolution. It is particularly important as the product of a female author. Pauline Crosleys role and experience in Russia in 1917 was much the same as the diplomatic wives of the US Foreign Service: she was largely responsible for their social calendar and the day-to-day operations of their home. Her letters tend to focus on the details of everyday life, particularly the assessment of their fuel and food supplies, as well as the changing cultural scene and growing violence in the city. Crosleys letters give us a sense of what life was like during these tumultuous months, and serve as a fascinating companion to some of the more politically detailed accounts of the revolutionary period."
Lee A. Farrow- Editors Introduction; Editors
Note; Acknowledgments; Intimate Letters from Petrograd; Preface; I. The
Siberian Railway; II. Petrograd; III. The Root Commission; IV. A
Revolution!; V. After the Revolution; VI. Riga Captured; VII. Another
Revolution; vi Contents; VIII. The Bolshevik Revolution; IX. Exit from
Finland; Afterword; Appendix; Index
Lee A. Farrow is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Auburn University at Montgomery. She grew up in Louisiana and received a Ph.D. in History from Tulane University, with a specialty in Russian History. The research for her dissertation became her first book, "Between Clan and Crown: The Struggle to Define Noble Property Rights in Imperial Russia" (2004).
