The Voyage of the Frigate Pallada (The Folio Society)

266 pp. English translation by N.W. Wilson, frontispiece and full-page illustrations (8 total), voyage map on endpapers, four maps in text. Many people are familiar with American Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to open trade relations with Japan in the early 1850s. Less well known is that on the heels of the Perry squadron followed a Russian expedition secretly on the same mission. Serving as secretary to the naval commander was novelist Ivan Goncharov, who turned his impressions into a book, The Frigate Pallada, which became a bestseller in imperial Russia. Goncharov is best known for his novels The Same Old Story (also known as A Common Story), Oblomov, and The Precipice (Malinovka Heights).