The Last Days of The Late Emperor of Russia Nicholas I. Together With Extracts From His Will. Translated From The Russian.

London: J. T. Hayes, 1855. 8vo, pp. 16. Extracted from a volume. Title-page a little worn to top edge. A few marginal pencil marks. An unrecorded pamphlet seeking to rehabilitate the reputation of the late Tsar Nicholas I and in doing so lessen support for the Crimean War. The preface, signed ‘A.S.G.’, claims the pamphlet was ‘originally written in the Russian language, translated from it into the German, and again translated into English by a lady, for private circulation.’ While this circuitous origin is possible, it seems more likely that this was, along with its anonymous publication, a way of obfuscating the text’s origin: the preface’s date of 8th November 1855 places it near the end of the Royal Navy’s campaign in the Sea of Azov, and its sympathetic portrayal of a military leader of an enemy combatant country may have been seen as seditious. The writer of the preface seems alive to this possibility when they refer to the rightness of ’any lawful mode by which the existing senseless clamour for the continuance of the War can be allayed,’ stressing Christian, humanitarian reasons. A rare item, unrecorded in Library Hub and Worldcat and unknown to Halkett and Laing.