The Secret City

Durward narrates the lives of these bourgeois Russians as they love each other and fight amongst themselves in equal measure. But as they obliviously carry on their cozy, lamp-lit lives, the Russian Revolution breaks out around them. St. Petersburg quickly changes from a comfortable, elegant, and gently mysterious city to a bloody and cold scar across the face of civilization. As the air fills with the sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke and soot, Durward and his English and Russian friends become a microcosm of the chaos they find themselves engulfed in.

Walpole lived some years in Russia during the Revolution, working as a journalist, then at the Russian Red Cross, and later as the Head of British Propaganda in St. Petersburg. His intimate knowledge of both the city and of the turbulent early days of the Revolution give The Secret City a more than convincing air. It’s the first book to have won the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and is considered to be Walpole’s most delicate and insightful work.

This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.