Seeing Saint Petersburg

This week, we had a visit from a book group hosted by Norwich Public Library that was reading and discussing Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. We pulled out all the stops for them, including a number of atlases from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; an Everyman's Library copy of the novel that once belonged to the English poet Rupert Brooke; and several travel narratives about St. Petersburg in the 1860s.

One of these narratives in particular drew our interest: Spectacles for Young Eyes: St. Petersburg, by Sarah West Lander. The book describes the Russian city through the eyes of the Hamiltons, an American family whose father "has been sent as engineer to this strange country, where there were no railroads until recently, and the children came with him." The children promise to tell the reader all that they saw, if he or she will only listen. Alongside stories of brutal winters and frozen streets are a number of interesting images depicting daily Russian life in the beautiful port city.

This volume is one of a series of juvenile travel books by Sarah West Lander that totaled eight volumes in all and were centered on important cities around the globe: Boston (which is where our book was printed), St. Petersburg, Pekin (sic), Moscow, Zurich, Berlin, Rome, and New York. Not much is known about Lander other than she was born in Salem, Massachusetts. The series was very popular at the time and saw publication by a number of successive companies.

If you're willing to brave the recently chilly days here in Hanover, come over to Rauner and read more about what life in a Russian city was like over a hundred and fifty years ago. Ask for 1926 Coll L35. We also have the Boston, Moscow, Zurich, and Peking volumes, if you'd like to settle down for a long spell in our reading room. Just ask for them at the desk.