The Secret City

Set in Petrograd during the upheaval of 1917, this novel watches the Russian Revolution unfold through the eyes of Englishmen caught in a city they cannot fully understand. Young, self-assured Henry Bohun arrives expecting adventure and instead finds himself drawn into the tangled emotional life of the Markovitch household, whose private jealousies and betrayals mirror the collapse going on outside their door. Hugh Walpole, who had served with a medical unit in wartime Russia, writes with real feeling for the mood of a place suspended between the old order and something violent and new. The book won the very first James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1919. This free PDF and EPUB edition makes it easy to read.