Memories of Forty Years by Princess Catherine Radziwill (Catherine Kolb) - 1915

New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1915 Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York. 1915. Hardcover. Edition not stated but possibly First US Edition since London was 1914. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Good; bumping and wear to head, tail, and tips; spotty stains to textblock top; small stains to textblock bottom and fore edge; finish wear to front board and spine. No DJ. Clean Internals. Internal hinges are sound and not split. Frontispiece photo present as are all photogravure illustrations listed. Original price of $3.75 in pencil on rear pastedown. 357 pp 8vo.The author was a Polish-Russian aristocrat born in Russia into the Polish-Lithuanian House of Rzewusk.Her maternal family was the Russian Dashkov-Vorontsov family. In 1873 she married the Polish-Lithuanian Prince Wilhelm Radziwiłł at age 15. Her reminiscences are in three groups and cover her experiences in the courts of England, Germany, and Russia during the reigns of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, and George V; William I, Frederick III and William II; Alexander III and Nicholas II. Kings, queens, scholars, statesmen, courtiers, and soldiers, they pass in a stately precession before the reader at the call of the memory of this Russian princess, who creates for a little while, the spell of their personalities and influence. Her recollections of the historical figures who wove the fabric of European politics and diplomacy are original and illuminating. A clean presentable copy.