Pauline de Rothschild, The Irrational Journey
Rothschild, Pauline de. The Irrational Journey. First English Edition. 1967. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition (quite uncommon for this title in which the jacket does not usually wear well). There is slight paper loss to the corners of the jacket.
How fortunate Pauline de Rothschild wrote a travel diary of the three-month expedition she and her husband took through Soviet Russia during the Khrushchev era. It’s a time capsule. The book’s title is a nod to the time of year in which the Rothschilds traveled—the dead of winter, uncomfortable in many locales, but in Russia, dramatically so. She writes that both she and her husband like the cold, but should the weather become too intemperate, they were accompanied by trunk loads of books from home. Thirty years after her death, Rothschild’s influence on style and design continues to reverberate. This, her only literary effort, offers a glimpse beyond her public image, revealing a literate and sensitive inner self; dare we say Proustian?
“Every traveler feels larger than life. In some countries this makes the visitor seem in the way. Not here, not in Russia.”
--Pauline de Rothschild