The contents of Mr. Markov's How We Tried to Save
the Tsaritsa (Putnam, 15s.) are singularly at variance with its title. He and his little circle made no real attempt to save their royal mistress (it is interesting to find Rasputin's son-in- law as one of her possible rescuers) ; they had no money, no plan and no organization. Hence there is practically no-story to tell. If the book is read as a picture of Russia in the early days of the Revolution, it will be found fairly satisfactory, though it contains nothing specially new on taat topic. We must confess, too, that a certain suspicion must always attach to a work which records long verbatim conversations of which no note could possibly have been taken, especially as the author admits that he destroyed all compromising documents while in Tiumen in 1918. It might also be explained how it has been possible to supply a full copy of a letter written for the Tsaritsa's eye when the writer states on a following page that he burned it next day.
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