Beausobre (Julia de) The Woman Who Could Not Die
£295
…with a preface by Rebecca West
London, Gollancz, 1948.
First Gollancz edition. 8vo. Original boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12/6.
An autobiographical account of the author’s imprisonment by the Soviet secret police (the GPU), separation from her husband, solitary confinement, sentence to forced labour, and eventual ransom to Britain. Iulia de Beausobre (1893-1977), born Iulia Michaelovna Kazarina in Saint Petersburg, was exiled to a Soviet camp before being ransomed by her former English governess and settling in Britain in 1934; in 1947 she married the historian Sir Lewis Namier, and after his death wrote his biography, for which she received the James Tait Black Award in 1971. The book is cited by Wikipedia’s account of the sources behind Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: Orwell took details from The Woman Who Could Not Die for his description of the psychological battle between Winston and O’Brien.
Out of stock
Booksmaller’s small label to front pastedown; jacket slightly darkened at spine.
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