A stunning tale set in England, Paris, and Moscow, chronicling Blanch's love for an older Russian man and the passionate obsession that takes her to Siberia and beyond.
Lesley Blanch was four when the mysterious traveler first blew into her nursery, swathed in Siberian furs and full of the fairytales of Russia. She was twenty when he swept out of her life, leaving her lovelorn and in the grips of a passionate obsession. The search to recapture the love of her life, and the Russia he had planted within her, takes her to Siberia and beyond, It travels in time over fifty years, and in space from aristocratic England to sophisticated Paris and the haunting beauty of Moscow, the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the awesome reaches of the Russian steppes.
“This book is a jewel: the prose is immaculate, the delineation of the human heart is unclouded by sentiment, and, in terms of contemporary feminism, it is almost on par with Freud’s Dora. An excellent study of the etiology of hysteria, Journey Iinto Tthe Mind’s Eye is one of the charter myths of contemporary women’s studies.” —Kevin McGrath, Harvard Review
“It is hard to classify her as a writer, unless as a scholarly romantic in a school of her own. Such is the depth of her research that other writers plunder her books shamelessly.” —Maureen Cleave, The Daily Telegraph
"If you are interested in Russia--if you are interested in love--this haunting book is one to read and re-read. A masterpiece." —Philip Ziegler
"One of the finest books about Russia ... one of the best travel books of its generation." —Spectator
"A jewel-filled narrative -- breathtaking, exotic and brilliant." —Newsday
"A curiously beautiful daydream of a book ... irresistible reading." —Tom Driberg, People
