Collaboration

1924 · 81805 — London: Edward Arnold 1924. Third Impression. Hardcover. Good. xii 295 1 16 pages Frontis illustration. Map at rear endpaper. Cover has some wear and soiling. Somewhat cocked. Some endpaper discoloration. Some page foxing and discoloration. Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski 27 May 1876 - 3 January 1945 was a Polish writer explorer university professor and anti-Communist political activist. He is best known for his books about Lenin and the Russian Civil War in which he participated. After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 Ossendowski moved to Harbin in Manchuria where he founded a Central Technical Research Laboratory a Russian-financed institution for development of the ore deposits in the area. At the same time he headed the local branch of the Russian Geographic Society in Vladivostok. As such he made numerous trips to Korea Sakhalin Ussuri and the shores of the Bering Strait. In Manchuria he also became one of the leaders of the considerable Polish diaspora. At the outbreak of the Russian Civil War he also got involved in the counterrevolutionary Russian government led by Supreme Governor Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak. He served at various posts among others as an intelligence officer an envoy to the intervention corps from the United States and an assistant to the Polish 5th Rifle Division of Maj. Walerian Czuma. In 1918 he was responsible for the transfer of many tsarist and White Russian documents to the Entente. In late 1921 he published his first book in English: Beasts Men and Gods. The description of his travels during the Russian Civil War became a striking success and a bestseller. After the end of the Russian Civil War Ossendowski continued to travel to different parts of the world and after each journey he published a book or two. In the interwar period he was considered the creator of a distinct genre called the traveling novel. With over 70 books published in Poland and translated almost 150 times into 20 other languages Ossendowski was also the second most popular Polish author abroad after Henryk Sienkiewicz. Edward Arnold hardcover