[Album of Eight Drawings 1885-1886]. [With] Siberia and the Exile System.

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

The first edition of Kennan’s remarkable exposé of the Russian penal system, with eight original drawings by his fellow traveller, the artist George Albert Frost. Both Kennan and Frost first travelled to Siberia in their early twenties, working on the highly ambitious Russian-American telegraph project, which was cancelled in 1867. Despite the hardships of that experience Kennan was eager to further explore the Russian Empire and spent the second half of 1870 in the Caucasus, where he witnessed many incidents of savagery; all the while maintaining his faith in Russia’s ability to eventually civilise such isolated regions. This stance led him to return to Russia in August-September 1884, with the initial aim of disproving accounts of the unfair treatment of supposed revolutionaries and dissidents in the penal system. His pro-Russian views no doubt helped secure a letter from Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander G. Vlangali, supporting his endeavour. With the backing of The Century Magazine Kennan and Frost (employed to visually document the journey) set sail in early May 1885. On the 31st of that month they left St. Petersburg, beginning a journey of over eight thousand miles, which took them through Western Siberia, the Altai Mountains, Tomsk, Krasonyarsk, Irkutsk and then on toward the prison sites of Chita, Nerchinsk and Kara katorga. It was in those prisons that the two men uncovered endemic overcrowding, lack of medical care, physical abuse and, as a result of

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