The Russian Empire: A Portrait in Photographs

(London: Jonathan Cape: 1980) First British Edition Introduction by Max Hayward. Quarter cloth gilt decorated bds pp. xx, 346 (310 x 240 mm) Profusely illustrated. The period covered is 1855-1914. From the now dispersed library of the late Mr Jeremy Gray and clearly ex libris his late mother, Thelma Gray, the renowned authority on dogs; a commercial bookplate on fixed front endpaper; a letter from Princess Troubestskoy affixed in envelope to free front endpaper; some Trubetskoys are acknowledged in the book for having loaned photographs for use; this letter, however, as one might have expected, is about breeding arrangements for a Corgi bitch to be sent to Mrs Gray's kennels (she was indeed a provider of Corgis to the Queen of England); the letter is dated 17 April 1945; the Princess was a 'refugee from old Russia'. Some soiling to endpapers and boards otherwise good copy.