The Rare and Extraordinary History of Holy Russia

One of the most madly inventive works of satire ever created, Gustave Dore's Rare and Extraordinary History of Holy Russia remains as astonishingly funny - and chilling - as when it sprang from the twenty-one year old's pen in 1854. Apart from the delicate experiments of the Swiss artist Topffer, this is the first proper graphic narrative, the immediate antecedent of all graphic novels of the 20th century. Timeless in its coruscating view of the brutality and savagery of Russian history, and gripping in its nervous apprehension of Russia's imperial ambitions, the book sheds a fascinating light on lasting myths and prejudices, sharpened in Dore's time by the Crimean War. As an introduction to the West's ambivalent attitude to Russia, Dore's book is unparalleled. Out of print for over 40 years, The Rare and Extraordinary History of Holy Russia is presented here with an introduction by Richard Pipes, Baird Professor of History at Harvard, that sets the works in the context of Dore's times and our own.