Author: Ismail Kemal Bey

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-20

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 9781331907718

Excerpt from The Memoirs of Ismail Kemal Bey In prefixing to the "Memoirs" of Ismail Kemal Bey, in guise of "Introduction," a few unnecessary, but, let me hope, not absolutely futile, comments, I am merely keeping a promise solemnly made during the months we passed together in Paris in 1917 and 1918. It was, no doubt, natural enough for Ismail Kemal Bey to suggest some such association. Certainly his book would not have been written but for my urgent insistence. Moreover, too directly and absorbingly involved in matters connected with the progress of the war to offer my friend the constant collaboration which he solicited - and which, in fact, he needed - I was able to provide him with the indispensable assistance which the occasion demanded. These "Memoirs," indeed, are "edited" by Mr. Sommerville Story; and it is a duty both to Ismail Kemal Bey and to Mr. Story to leave no doubt as to what the "editing" in question means. The making of this book was a laborious process. During its production Ismail Kemal Bey was distracted both by grave personal, often harrowing, problems, and by patriotic preoccupations and intrigues as to the future of his Albanian fatherland. He did not, no doubt he could not, give to its composition his undivided time. His shifting enthusiasms and curiosities, his spasmodic disappearances, even his halting methods when he returned intermittently to the task of assembling his recollections, made an accumulation of extremely unfavourable conditions for the success of the operation in which Mr. Story found himself engaged. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.