A Raw Youth by Dostoevsky, Feodor; Garnett, Constance (Translated); Mochulsky, Konstantin (Translator); Eichenberg, Fritz (Illustrator) - 1974

New York / Verona: Printed for The Limited Editions Club at the Stamperia Valdonega, 1974. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine/near fine. Eichenberg, Fritz. Two volumes (complete), number 351 of 2000, quarto size, 576 pp., signed by Fritz Eichenberg, with LEC Monthly Newsletter and announcement. Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) remains one of the most highly regarded Russian novelists; his psychological penetration into the darkest recesses of the human heart, together with his unsurpassed moments of illumination, had an immense influence on twentieth-century fiction, and literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology, theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas (n. b., info from Brittanica).

This novel, originally published in monthly installments in 1875 in "The Fatherland Notes", has been frequently dismissed as a failure by critics. The novel chronicles the life of nineteen-year-old intellectual Arkady Dolgoruky, illegitimate child of the controversial and womanising landowner Versilov. The novel focuses on the recurring conflict between father and son, particularly in ideology, which represents the battles between the conventional "old" way of thinking in the 1840s and the new nihilistic point of view of the youth of 1860s Russia.

Illustrating this publication by the Limited Editions Club is German-American illustrator Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990), who had a prolific career as a book illustrator; mainly working in woodcuts, Eichenberg specialised in material with elements of extreme spiritual and emotional conflict, fantasy, or social satire, illustrating such authors as Leo Tolstoy, the Brontes, and Edgar Allan Poe.

___DESCRIPTION: Full silk-finish grey-green cloth, green cloth spine label with gilt ruled borders and lettering, Volume One with eight full-page wood engravings and two wood engravings at the beginning of Parts One and Two, Volume Two with seven full-page wood engravings and two wood engravings at the beginning of Parts Two and Three, all by Fritz Eichenberg; monotype Bembo, Cartiere Enrico Magnani paper, quarto size (11.5" by 8"), 576 pp., one of 2000 copies, this number 351, signed by the artist Fritz Eichenberg on the colophon in Volume Two. With the announcement, one sheet, and LEC Monthly Newsletter, an eight-page booklet stapled at the spine, tucked inside LEC envelope. In glassine dust jackets, housed in a slipcase covered in green paper, with tan paper spine label with green lettering.

___CONDITION: Both volumes are fine; the boards clean, the corners straight and unrubbed, the bindings tight with solid hinges, the interiors clean and bright, and entirely free of prior owner markings; clean, crisp, as new. The LEC announcement and Monthly Newsletter are fine, clean and without wear. The glassine wrappers are near fine, clean, with only light edgwear at the heads and tails of the spine and top corners. The slipcase is near fine, strong and sturdy, clean but for the hint of a stray mark or two, light toning to the spine label, tail of the spine very gently bumped.

___CITATION: LEC Bibliography no. 482.

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