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--