The Hon. Maurice Baring in The
Morning Post. - "The general reader will find
that Mr Graham will tell him just those things which he does not know already,
and that Mr Graham does include what the
reader particularly wants to know, and does omit what the reader particularly
wants not to know. And the reader who is at all familiar with Russian life, and
especially Russian peasant life, will not only be charmed by Mr Graham's
narrative in itself, but he will be surprised and delighted at the truth, the
reality, and the understanding revealed by his sketches. But besides valuable
rightness of judgement and truth of apprehension, the book is full of passages
of beauty, and contains scores of delightfully amusing incidents. Every one
interested in Russia should read it at once. It is, above all things, readable,
and it is as delightful as it is true. More, it is a valuable and precious
record of a thing wholly unknown and extremely important to Europe, the life of
the Russian peasant and the psychology of the Russian people."
The Spectator. - "Mr.Graham
writes so well that the aspects of his subject tend to transfigure themselves
under the spell of a style whose delicate phrasing and soft melancholy often
remind one of Loti's subtle-hued visions of men and things seen from beneath
the half-closed eyelids of artist and dreamer. Certainly there is in Mr Graham's
mood and expression some elusively un-English element that makes his work read at times
like perfectly translated French. Still, his sadness
has its source, not in the passive weariness of Loti, surfeited with civilisation and experience, but
in the mysticism of a born wanderer."
Mr.Rothay Reynolds in The Daily
News. - "Mr Graham is a man of action as well as of dreams. He cooked a dinner
for ten exiles; he explored subterranean lakes; he visited a hermit who wore chains and had vowed not
to speak; he sang, by special request, the only
English lyric known to the peasants of a hamlet on the Dwina - 'Ta-ra-ta-boom-de-ay.' He even got arrested. And about
all this and many other things he writes with rare charm. Undiscovered Russia is a book to read and to keep.
It would be worth having for the story of Shangin
and Daria alone, a tale of elemental love in the
forest."
Mr Victor Grayson in The
Clarion. - "This is a book of sheer delight. Having once started to read it, I
found it absolutely impossible to stop until I had finished the last page. Then
I began again and enjoyed a delicious saunter through the chapters that had won
my special affection. These were difficult to particularise, for the whole of
the three hundred odd pages are a sustained pleasure, an embarrassment of
riches. . . Mr Stephen Graham is, in my humble opinion, destined
to take an eminent place in the realm of literature. Even if I am mistaken, and
he passes near by with his pack on his back, there is one person who will feel
honoured to bring him in and fill his can."
Mr Algernon Blackwood in Country Life. - "He took into his own heart the
strange wild spirit of this enormous country that he has now given out in this volume of thrilling beauty and
delight. You see with him the weird wonder of the Northern White Night where for
two months the sun is above the horizon; you feel
the awful mystery of the leagues of untrodden forest; you catch fish with him at midnight on the
broad Dwina whilst the sun still shines on the waters; you hear the balalaikas
twang in the villages. . .and you share strange
gospels, taste ancient superstitions, hear the footfall of forest ghosts and
devils, or go into the heart of it to pluck the flower of happiness that
blossoms at midnight on the eve of St John. . .
A long beautiful poem of adventure and
delight."
Mr William Purvis in The Sunday Chronicle. - "Ought we to pity the rural Russians who today
are much as our ancestors five hundred years ago? Mr Graham raises this issue as
vitally as Morris or Carpenter . . . he raises it by showing
us mediaevalism as it appears to the man eating,
drinking, marrying, and working in its
midst."
The Times. - "Stephen Graham
presents a very impressive picture of the simplicity and fundamental soundness
of the Russian peasant in his daily life and
thought."
The Manchester Courier. - "His descriptions are often vividly
beautiful, truthfully intimate; his encounters with
the people are retailed with point and humour. Whatever the time and the place,
his mood is always attuned to it, for he is true to himself, and the things that
are alien to his individuality remain neglected. He has the magic touch that
acts as a charm for his readers, the 'Open Sesame' that admits them, too, into the mystery of
undiscovered Russia."
The Daily Express. - "The author
will walk by a bee-line into the reader's heart."
