The Ordeal of a Diplomat

E-093. Very Good. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Duckworth and Co, London, UK. 1921. 320 pgs. First Edition/First Printing. Ex-lib item with typical marks (library bookplate present to the front pastedown, library stamps present and numbers present to the spine). Bound in cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. Author was Vladimir Nabokov's uncle (father's brother) , charge d'affaires at Russian Embassy in London. Konstantin Nabokov (also spelled Constantine Nabokoff) was born in Rostov sul Don, Russia. He was an uncle of writer Vladimir Nabokov who called him "my father's Englished brother". He was one of the two secretaries to Count Witte, the Russian Secretary of State, during the Portsmouth, New Hampshire peace treaty talks (1905) , mediated by Theodore Roosevelt, which ended the Russo-Japanese war. In September 1919 he was forced to resign, although he continued to do very valuable work for the Russian community in the Russian Red Cross. He was sent to a diplomatic post in Norway, but returned to England in mid-1920, where he settled. E-152; 8vo 8" - 9" tall .