COLLINS, Samuel.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Present State of Russia, In a Letter to a Friend at London; Written by an Eminent Person residing at the Great Tzars Court at Mosco for the space of nine years. Illustrated with many Copper Plates. First edition of this eyewitness account of the Russia of Tsar Alexei, "perhaps the best account of the country published during the century" (Anderson, p. 201). Samuel Collins worked as physician to Alexei, father of Peter the Great, between 1660 and 1667; he is highlighted as perhaps the only contemporary author of English accounts of Russia that had a real grasp of the Russian language. In Russia, Samuel Collins (1619-1670) treated royalty, nobles, and courtiers, while writing papers on phlebotomy, obesity, and valerian. Among his contemporaries, this first-hand experience made him ideally placed to undertake a study of the country. Individual chapters focus on the tsar's monopoly of the trade in furs and caviar ("a great dainty, but will not keep"), the Russians' treatment of women ("very rigid and severe"), and descriptions of Moscow, the steppe, and Siberia ("tis so excessive cold here"). The six plates depict Russian letters, hand gestures, and architecture. The work was published the year after Collins's death.

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