Congratulations on the new book Helen!
I only wanted to ask, how much will it be different from "THE DIARY OF GRAND DUCHESS OLGA NICHOLAIEVNA ~ 1913 ~" ?
I do not own the book, but I immediatelly remembered it reading your summary.
Thanks, Ally.
I think you are talking about the Marina Petrov translations from 2007 or 2008? I never actually read those, but I know that the Petrov book is now permanently our of print, as per the original publisher, Paul Gilbert. From what I understand, it contained straight translations of the entries, not much else: no footnotes, no photos, etc. "Journal of a Russian Grand Duchess" will contain both - plenty of footnotes and lots of photos to illustrate the text. The diary entry translations are original, all done by me directly from Olga's handwritten 1913 diary facsimiles. My book will also include all of Olga's decoded writing, where she talks about Pavel Vorono and his engagement and marriage to someone else, etc.
Another important difference is that my book will be sold for about 1/3 of the price of the Petrov book, as I always try to make my books as affordable as possible to all. That was actually the main reason I did not buy the Petrov book myself, because simply I couldn't afford the price at the time. And even though I was among several people who assisted in editing it, and even contributed some of the translations as well as communications with the Russian Archives (GARF) about it, etc., sadly I never did get a copy. In a way I am glad I never read it, because I did not want to be influenced in any way by someone else's translations. I am now extremely familiar with Olga's hand and her style of "speaking", so these 1913 translations came very naturally to me.
I hope this answers your question?
