Publication of this first monograph on Irina Odoevtseva is a long overdue event. Ella Bobrow, the poet's long-standing friend and admirer, completed her book more than a decade ago. Only the vicissitudes of Soviet and Russian literary politics forestalled the book's immediate and deserved appearance in the early 1980s.

Odoevtseva's enforced exile in France, almost to the end of her life, prevented recognition in her native country as one of the prominent figures of St Petersburg and Russian emigré literature.

The standing that Irina Odoevtseva truly deserves has hitherto been apparent mainly to readers and scholars familiar with her poems, fiction and memoirs. For those still in doubt or ignorance, however, Ella Bobrow's book will serve as a broad introduction to one of Russia's major woman writers.