marquis de Astolphe Custine

Born in 1790, Astolphe de Custine was a French nobleman, traveler, and writer whose life was shaped by the aftermath of the French Revolution. He came from an aristocratic family that had suffered heavily during the revolutionary era, and that background helps explain the strong political and social curiosity running through his books.

He is best remembered for La Russie en 1839, the book that grew out of his journey through the Russian Empire in 1839. In it, he combined travel writing with close observations about power, censorship, society, and daily life, and the book became the work most closely associated with his name.

Custine died in 1857. Although he wrote in the 19th century, readers still return to him for the energy of his prose and for the way his personal experiences fed into his reflections on politics and freedom.