Hardcover reprint edition:  242 pages, 6.34 x 9.53 inches.
Paperback reprint edition:  242 pages, 6.10 x 9.24 inches.

From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister

In the early nineteenth century, Nadezhda Durova ran away from home dressed as a man and joined the Russian calvary, where she maintained the secret of her gender and served with distinction as an officer for more than nine years. Her diary, published as The Cavalry Maiden, was one of Russia's first autobiographical works, making this book noteworthy both for its content and its place in literary history. Not every reader will enjoy the disjointed and occasionally impersonal style; nor will everyone be interested in Nadezhda Durova's recounting of Russian geography and military history that comprises much of the middle portion of the book. Yet you don't have to be from the nineteenth century to sympathize when she writes: "I jump for joy as I realize that I will never again in my entire life hear the words: You, girl, sit still! It's not proper for you to go wandering out alone." Nor need you be a Russian scholar to appreciate her descriptions of officers, horses, local citizens, and dress balls. Mary Fleming Zirin's introduction illuminates those areas where Nadezhda Durova was not exactly truthful (she was not sixteen and single when she ran away, but twenty-three, married and a mother), and brings further understanding to this headstrong woman who, as a child, refused to knit shoelaces but "ran and galloped around the room in all directions, shouting at the top of my voice: 'Squadron! To the Right, face! From your places, charge - CHARGE!'"
 

Indiana University Press   ISBN 0253313724 (Hardcover)
                                                  0253205492 (Paperback)

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