http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/using-the-library/library-use-and-policies
Heinrich Christoph von Reimers (1768-1812). St. Petersburg am Ende seines ersten Jahrhunderts. St. Petersburg: bei F. Dienemann, 1805. 2 vols. C2582 v. 2
Charles Colville Frankland (1797-1876). Narrative of a visit to the courts of Russia and Sweden, in the years 1830 and 1831. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1832. 2 vols. C9056
Location, Location... One can see from looking at a map that the piece of real estate Peter chose on which to plant a city might have been an ideal gate for trade from West to East and East to West for centuries. But most maps don't show what a sodden, marshy, insect and disease-ridden, unhealthy-for-humans swamp were the waterways at the mouth of the Neva at the beginning of the 18th century. It was poor land, sustaining a few fishing villages and trading posts; there was no source of fresh water here; the Neva was frozen from November through March. For those who did inhabit the area, timber was scant and had to be floated down the river for even the simplest of structures. But Peter had cast a determined eye on it and multitudes died in the process of turning the site into a city with more or less (mostly less) solid underpinnings that gave way nevertheless flood after flood, year after year. Pushkin's great poem, "The Bronze Horseman" has to do with the great flood of 1824, the worst one of all time. We don't learn, do we? Frankland's lithograph map of a flood control project shows how devoted was Peterborough's attempt to understand and control nature through science.
Heinrich Friedrich von Storch (1766-1835). The picture of Petersburg. London: printed for T.N. Longman & O. Rees, 1801. C12325
Picture of more than a thousand words... Storch's Picture of Petersburg, 1792, set a standard for European accounts of the city and is still quoted today. Storch says, "One of the most important phenomena of this period [the 18th century] is without a doubt the moral and political transformation of a vast and powerful people, whose latent powers were awakened as if by an electric shock, and were transformed into the most astounding activity. Russia, which had previously been a little known and little feared empire, suddenly made an appearance among the European states at the beginning of this century and, after a short test of its strength, became the arbiter and decisive power of the North."
Novyĭ rossīĭsko-frant︠s︡uzsko-ni︠e︡met︠s︡kīĭ slovarʹ, sochinennyĭ po slovari︠u︡ Rossīĭskoĭ akademīi Ivanom Geĭmom / izhdivenïem Khr. Klaudïi︠a︡ = Nouveau dictionnaire russe-françois & allemand / composé d’après le dictionnaire de l’Académie russe par Jean Heym ; aux dépens de Christophe Claudi, D1621.
My Big Fat Russian-French-German Dictionary
William Alexander 1767-1816). The costume of the Russian empire illustrated by a series of seventy-three engravings; with descriptions in English and French. London: printed for William Miller by Howlett and Brimmer, 1803. E18
Blue Boy... Although this volume of plates is attributed in the British Museum Catalogue to William Alexander, nowadays it is usually cataloged under the name of the artist, E. Harding. It has a complicated bibliography: the plates were apparently copied from a series of engravings begun in St. Petersburg in 1776 and completed under the care of C.W. Muller for a work of J.G. Georgi. The plates are derived from both Georgi and Pallas, and the descriptions are said to have been adapted from various sources: mostly Muller, but also Chappe D'Auteroche, Krashenninikov, Plescheëf, Pallas, and Saur.
Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834). Historical sketch of Moscow: illustrated by twelve views of different parts of that imperial city, the Kremlin, &c. London: R. Ackermann, 1813. E1675
The Big Pomegranate ... We toyed with idea of calling this exhibition "St. Petersburg: The Second City," not only because of Moscow's historical firstness, but also because its architecture and art looks like nothing else, anywhere else; it embodies the ancient Russian soul distilled in a few glorious structures. We include this volume to show that we are always on the lookout for interesting books about Russia, whether or not about St. Petersburg, and from both sides of the window. This volume produced by Rudolf Ackermann is one of our most recent purchases, and bespeaks the fact that artists, publishers, engravers, paper-makers, plate-makers, letter engravers, aquatint ground layers, and press engineers collaborated in an intensely creative period in 18th and 19th century London. Ackermann himself was a German from Saxony who moved to England in his 20s. The Ackermann family and firm was pre-eminent in the business of making prints and was in business until just a few years ago. The Moscow volume is considered to be "a very rare Ackermann" in any case, and is one of the very rare colored copies: it's usually found uncolored.
Albertus Seba (1665-1736). Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri. Amstelaedami: apud J. Wetstenium, & Gul. Smith, & Janssonio-Waesbergios, 1734-1765. 4 vols. Ellis Aves H28, v.1
Anteaters for the Tsar! If this New World native, the anteater, could write an account of how he made it to the Kunstkammer in Sankt Pieter Burkh in the early 18th century, it would be a best-seller. Peter the Great had begun to purchase natural history collections (birds, fishes, insects, monsters, anatomical preparations) during his pre-Petersburgian travels in the West, with an eye to the development of medicine in Russia. Albertus Seba was a wealthy Dutch apothecary, merchant and traveler whose collection of natural history objects was the largest of its kind in his day. His collection would form the nucleus of the Russian national collections in St. Petersburg after purchase by Peter. This work was produced simultaneously in Latin-Dutch and Latin-French editions, in both colored and uncolored versions. Ours is one of the few copies with colored plates.
Voyage dans la Russie meridionale et la Crimee par la Hongrie, la Valachie et la Moldavie. Execute en 1837. Edition illustree de 64 dessins par Raffet. Paris, 1840. Ellis Aves H18
To Russia With Love... The Demidov family of mine owners rose to prominence under Peter I when they were granted extensive landholdings for construction of metallurgical factories in the Urals. Master craftsmen were brought in, factories were built, extra lands and serfs were bought, and the family ultimately produced more than 40% of the cast iron in Russia. However, by the beginning of the 19th century they were producing only 25% and subsequently holdings began to decline. The Demidovs nevertheless became part of the court aristocracy and came to be known no longer as "the famous old Russian family of Urals mine owners" but as "the famous old Russian family of writers and travelers," of which Anatolii, born in 1812, was a prime example. And the West noticed him. His uncle had commanded a regiment to oppose Napoleon, but love ultimately proved the more powerful force than war and Anatolii married Jerome Bonaparte's daughter Mathilde. This work, from the Ralph N. Ellis Collection, is part of our larger collection of illustrated herpetological books spanning five centuries.