Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕
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Xavier de Maistre lived mostly as a military man, fighting in France and Russia around the turn of the 19th century. In 1790 a duel he participated in led him to be put under arrest in Turin; during his confinement in a tiny chamber, he wrote his most famous work, “A Journey Round My Room.”
“Journey” is a short story written as a parody of the grand travelogues popular at the time. He frames his six weeks’ confinement as a long journey across the unknown land of his room, visiting the furniture, the paintings on the wall, and even venturing to the north side. De Maistre didn’t hold the work in very high regard, but after his brother had it published in 1794 it became a fast success, eventually calling for a sequel (“A Night Journey Round My Room”), and warranting allusions in fiction by writers like D. H. Lawrence, Wilkie Collins, W. Somerset Maugham, and Jorge Luis Borges.
The rest of his literary corpus is modest, and consists entirely of short works. “The Leper of the City of Aosta” is a philosophical dialogue on the struggles of a leper whose days are seemingly filled with unending sorrow; “The Prisoners of the Caucasus” is the fictional narrative of a captured general and his faithful servant, set against a rich background of Cossack factions in the Caucasus of Imperial Russia reminiscent of Tolstoy’s Hadji Murád; and “The Young Siberian” is the true story of Prascovia Lopouloff, a poor Russian girl who sets out on a journey to secure an imperial pardon for her exiled father.
De Maistre never set out to have a literary career, but his carefully-considered output made him famous across the continent.
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- Author: Xavier de Maistre
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The author was on duty in Piedmont, when the prvvince of Savoy, in which he was born, was ceded back to France. —Andrews ↩
According to Malte Brun, the Tchetchengs live in seven great villages, and are a branch of the Gosski or Mountaineer tribes. —Carey & Lea ↩
Mosdok: 43° 44′ 5″ lat. 44° 40′ 27″ long. E. Greenwich. —Carey & Lea ↩
His name was Ivan Smirnoff, which might be translated “John the Mild;” an appellation which, as will be seen, was strangely contrasted with his character. —Carey & Lea ↩
A common expression of the Russian soldiers, in moments of danger. —Carey & Lea ↩
A cloak of shaggy waterproof felt, not unlike a bear skin, which is the ordinary upper-dress of the Cossacks, and only fabricated in their country; with this piece of furniture, they care little for rain and mud, when lying whole nights at the watch-fire. —Carey & Lea ↩
Iegroviesky: 44° 8′ 55″ lat. 43° 29′ 12″ long. —Carey & Lea ↩
Ischim is at 3,012 versts from St. Petersburg, 2,375 from Moscow, and 342 from Tobolsk.
It is rather a small town than a village. “It is,” says Captain John Dundas Cochrane, “a miserable town on the stream of its own name. I could get no attention paid me, either as to lodging or food; and though the rain fell in torrents, I and my Cossacks were obliged to pass the night in the marketplace.” —Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey. London 1824. p. 130.
For farther details of Ischim, see also pages 529 and 530, of the same work. —Carey & Lea ↩
Yekaterinburg, in the government of Perne, at 2,496 versts from St. Petersburg, 56° 50′ 38″ lat. and 60° 40′ 15″ long. E. of Greenwich. —Carey & Lea ↩
Niejeni Novogorod, at 1,176 versts from St. Petersburg, and 449 from Moscow.
For the modern embellishments of this city, and the works constructed for the Fair, see the Narrative of the Pedestrian Journey, pages 82 and 550. —Carey & Lea ↩
The Catacombs of Kiev are large subterraneous galleries under the Cathedral, containing the remains of a great number of Greek saints, dressed in rich apparel, but of whose persons only the faces, hands, and feet are visible: yet the bodies are said to be entire. The fleshy part of them has the colour and hardness of mahogany. The religious service at the Cathedral, is committed to the monks of an ancient and rich monastery. —Carey & Lea ↩
Moscow, at 727 versts from St. Petersburg. —Carey & Lea ↩
A quarter of St. Petersburg, on the right bank of the Neva. —Carey & Lea ↩
In Russia, the nuns make no vow of perpetual seclusion. —Carey & Lea ↩
Judges 11:34. —Carey & Lea ↩
Novogorod, at 185 versts from St. Petersburg, 58° 31′ 33″ lat. and 31° 19′ 39″ long. E. of Greenwich. —Carey & Lea ↩
ColophonShort Fiction
was compiled from short stories published between 1794 and 1825 by
Xavier de Maistre.
It was translated from French between 1871 and 1899 by
John Andrews, Henry Attwell, H. C. Carey, and I. Lea.
Ray Riga
sponsored the production of this ebook for
Standard Ebooks.
It was transcribed and produced by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2020 by
Tim Lindell, Chuck Grief, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at
Google Books.
The cover page is adapted from
The Artist’s Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse,
a painting completed in 1851 by
Adolph Menzel.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 21, 2022, 2:32 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/xavier-de-maistre/short-fiction/john-andrews_henry-attwell_h-c-carey_i-lea.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
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