Dora D'Istria, the pseudonyme of Helen Ghika, Princess Koltzoff-Massalsky, a Wal-lachian authoress, born in Bucharest, Jan. 22, 1829. She is great-granddaughter of Michael Ghika, who was assassinated by the Turks, and niece of Prince Alexander Ghika, hospodar of Wallachia. She received instruction from Professor Pappadopulos, and early acquired a knowledge of the ancient and modern languages. When 15 years old she translated the Iliad into German, and afterward wrote several plays. She travelled in Europe from 1841 to the close of 1848, and on her return to Wallachia married in February, 1849, the Russian prince Koltzoff-Massalsky, with whom she went to Russia. From 1855 to 1860 she resided in Switzerland and Belgium, and became known by her writings in the periodical press, as well as in published volumes. In 1860 she travelled in Greece, and in 1861 went to Italy, taking up her residence at Florence. In 1867 the Greek legislature adopted her as a Greek citizen. She is honorary member of several learned societies of Europe, and a Smyrna association elected her president in 1871. Besides her literary works, she has been a successful painter, and two landscapes exhibited in St. Petersburg in 1854 received a silver medal.

Among her published works are : La tie monastique dans v Eglise orientale (Brussels, 1855; Paris and Geneva, 1858); La Suisse allemande et l' ascension du Moench (Paris and Geneva, 1856; English translation, London, 1858; German, Zurich, 1857-'9); Les femmes en Orient (Zurich, 1860; Russian and Greek translations, St. Petersburg and Athens); Excursions en Roumelie et en Moree (Zurich, 1863); La Venitienne (1864); Des femmes, par une femme (Paris and Brussels, 1864; translated into Russian, Italian, and English); and Gli Albanesi in Rumenia (2 vols., 1873). She is also the author of several novels, and of pamphlets on philological subjects.