Rezanov | Page 3

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REZANOV
BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON With an Introduction by WILLIAM
MARION REEDY

INTRODUCTION
A long list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer. She
is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is distinctively
feminine, though she is in matters historical a pas- sionate partisan.
Most of the critics who approve her work agree that in the main she
views life with somewhat of the masculine spirit of liberality. She is as
much the realist as one can be who is saturated with the romance that is
California, her birthplace and her home, if such a true cosmopolite as
she can be said to have a home. In all she has written there is
abounding life; her grasp of character is firm; her style has a warm,
glowing plasticity, frequently a rhythm variously expressive of all the
wide range of feeling which a writer must have to make his or her
books living things. She does no less well in the depiction of men than
in the portraiture of women. All stand out of their vivid environment
distinctly and they are all personalities of power-- even, occasionally,
of "that strong power called weakness." And they all wear something of
a glory imparted to them by the sympathy of their creator and

interpreter. High upon any roster of our best American writers we must
enroll the name of Mrs. Atherton.
Of all her books I like best this "Rezanov," though I have not found
many to agree with me. It is not so pretentious as others more
frequently commended. It is a simple story, almost one might say an
incident or an anecdote. It is not literally sophisticated. For me that is
its unfailing charm. I find in it not a little of the strange, primeval
quality that makes me think of "Aucassin and Nico- lette." For it is not
so much a novel as an his- torical idyl, not to be read without a
persisting suffusion of sympathy and never to be remembered without a
recurring tenderness. Remembered, did I say? It is unforgettable. There
are few books of American origin that resist so well the passing of the
years, that take on more steadily the glam- our of "the unimaginable
touch of time." "Rez- anov" is a classic, or I miss my guess. This,
though it was first published so recently as 1906.
The story has the merit of being, to some extent historically, and
wholly artistically, true. For the matter-of-facts Mrs. Atherton provides
a bibliog- raphy of her authorities. Those authorities I have not read,
nor should others. Sufficient unto me is the authority of the novel itself
splendidly demonstrated and established in the high court of the
reader's head and heart by the author's visu- alizing veritism. Not
twenty pages have you turned before you know this Rezanov, privy
councilor, grand chamberlain, plenipotentiary of the Russo- American
company, imperial inspector of the ex- treme eastern and northwestern
dominions of his imperial majesty Alexander the First, emperor of
Russia--all this and more, a man. He comes out of mystery into the
softly bright light of California, in strength and shrewdness and dignity
and per- sonal splendor. And there is amidst it all a pathos upon him.
He commands your affection even while suggesting a doubt whether
the man may not be overwhelmed in the diplomat, the intriguer. The
year is 1806. The monstrous apparition of Napo- leon has loomed an
omen of the doom of ancient authority and the shattering of nations in
Europe. That faithless, incalculable idealist Alexander, plans he knows
not what of imperial glory in the Eastern and Western world. Rezanov
is his ser- vant, a man of ambition, perhaps in all favor at court,

desirous of doing some great service for his master. He dreams of
dominion in this sun-soaked land so lazily held in the lax grasp of
Spain. He has come from failure. He had been to Japan with presents to
the emperor, was received by minor officials with a hospitality that
poorly concealed the fact that he was virtually a prisoner, and then dis-
missed without admission to the audience he sought with the mikado.
He had gone then to bleak, in- hospitable Sitka, to find the settlement