He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark; this, the author tells us, is the whole story except that he starts from here, with his characteristic dazzling skill and irony, and brilliantly turns a fable into a chilling, original novel of folly and destruction. Amidst a Weimar-era milieu of silent film stars, artists, and aspirants, Nabokov creates a merciless masterwork as Albinus, an aging critic, falls prey to his own desires, to his teenage mistress, and to Axel Rex, the scheming rival for her affections who finds his greatest joy in the downfall of others. Published first in Russian as Kamera Obskura in 1932, this book appeared in Nabokov's own English translation six years later. This New Directions edition, based on the text as Nabokov revised it in 1960, features a new introduction by Booker Prize-winner John Banville.

    He was betrayed to the Secret Police, who declared him "the most dangerous counter-revolutionary at large in the Tashkent region."Thus began his extraordinary catalogue of adventures, "a long and distant odyssey which would take me right across Central Asia . . . over the Himalayas to the plains of Hindustan." As he fled from Lenin's men, he was aided by the indigenous peoples of the region, the Kirghiz and the Sarts, and for months he was forced to live the life of a hunted animal.Peter Hopkirk has contributed a fascinating introduction to this thrilling tale of espionage and survival against all odds, as well as an epilogue which reveals Nazaroff's later fortunes.

    R.H. Lockhart's account of the years he spent representing Britain's Foreign Office in Russia is still immensely entertaining and informative today. Lockhart was not an espionage agent; he was a diplomat. He was Britain's Vice-Consul in Moscow, then Acting Consul-General, then official "unofficial" representative to the new Bolshevik regime in Russia, between the years 1912 and 1918. Lockhart describes his attempts at rubber farming as a young man in Malaysia and the circumstances that led to his seeking a career in the Foreign Office. He was given the post of British Vice-Consul in Moscow shortly after joining the Service. In these memoirs, Lockhart gives us his insights into Russian culture and politics during the last years of Tzarist rule, the circumstances of Russia's participation in World War I, and Russia's descent into Bolshevism. Lockhart came to love the Russian people and consider Moscow his home while he witnessed the last Tzar unwittingly ensure his own downfall and the succeeding Provisional Government inevitably fail. He gives an honest account of the errors in British and Allied policies during these precarious years in Russia. We get a close-up view of the eternal rift between diplomatic knowledge and political imperative. "Memoirs of a British Agent" is a supremely literate and insightful first-hand account of the fascinating and turbulent time in Russia that gave birth to the Soviet Union through the eyes of a foreigner who knew many prominent members of both the Tzarist and Bolshevik regimes personally. Lockhart manages to convey great sympathy for Russians of various ideologies while at the same time speaking bluntly of their shortcomings. Rarely has a book that is so informative been so entertaining. "Memoirs of a British Agent" is a real page-turner.

    

    Originally published in 1931. INTRODUCTION: THIS book is founded on the experience gained during about nine months of travel and residence in Manchuria, in 1929-30, under a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, New York. Previous experience on the borders of China and Inner Mongolia, and a long journey through Mon golia and Chinese Turkestan, had convinced me that a study of Manchuria must be essential to an understanding of the vast territory that lies between China and Russia. Manchuria, Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan were once important as the lands in which the northern barbarians of Chinas frontier maneuvered in war and migration, working out among their own tribes their destinies of conquest in China or migration toward the West. They are now becoming a field of contest between three types of civilization the Chinese, the Russian and the Western. In our generation the most acute rivalry is in Manchuria, and the chief protagonist of the Western civilization is Japan whose interpretation and application of a borrowed culture is of acute interest to the Western world, as on it turns to a great extent the choice which other nations have yet to make between their own indigenous cultures and the rival conquering cultures of Russia and the West. During our stay in Manchuria my wife and I tried to make our experience as varied as possible, but at the same time to stay long enough in each region studied to insure that our impressions should not be too superficial. Thus we spent part of the winter in one room at an inn, in a mud-walled boom town on the Western frontiers of Manchuria, where Chinese colonists are rapidly taking over Mongol pastures and opening them to cultivation. Then we moved to another one room lodging in an old thatched schoolhouse, in a small town in Kirin province, where the population was old-fash ioned and predominantly Manchu. In the spring I went up again to the Western frontiers and traveled, first by military motor convoy and then riding with border troopers, among the Mongols. When the ice broke up on the great Sungari river, I traveled on one of the first steamers down to the junction of the Sungari with the Amur about four hundred miles. As the steamers were afraid to venture into the Amur, no settlement having yet been made of the dispute between China and Russia, I traveled on by cart, with a good deal of difficulty, for some distance along the flooded banks of the Amur, among the Fishskin Tatars. Later in the summer I visited Hailar, in the Barga region. In the intervals between traveling, or making long stays in the country, we visited the chief cities Mukden, Dairen, Harbin and Kirin city or made short stays at smaller towns, or in villages, or at temples in the hills. In the larger towns we naturally did our best to meet well-informed people of all nationalities, but out in the country we rarely saw a for eigner, and often went for weeks without speaking English except to each other. As we traveled very simply, had no need of an interpreter, used always the same means of travel as the people of the region and lived in the same kind of houses or inns, our contact with the life about us was as close as possible. We were thus able to collect a great deal of local tradition not only legend and folklore, but the memories of the older inhabitants besides noting the signs of that modern progress which is the chief enthusiasm of the younger generation...