Stikhotvoreniia (Poems)

Moskva (Moscow): Vysochaishe utv. T-vo Skorop. A. A. Levenson, 1896. First Edition. Very good. First edition; 8 x 5 3/4; pp. [1], II-IV, [2], 1, [7], 9-184; red cloth over boards and 1/4 red morocco with four raised bands; gilt title to spine (faded); silk page marker; a few small spots to cloth; a bit of wear to corners and tips of spine; lacking ffep, else complete; illustrated with a small vignette to title page; text mostly clean, with a few occasional spots and offsetting to paper; overall in very good condition.Mirra Lokhvitskaia - Zhiber [Mariia Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaia] (1869 - 1905), called the "Russian Sappho" for the erotic sensuality of her poems and considered one of the most important figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry and founder of Russian women's poetry, was also the sister of famous Russian humorist Nadezhda Lokhvitskaia - Teffi and White Army General Nikolai Lokhvitskii. Although several of her poems were published in the "Sever" journal in 1888, she did not begin gaining fame until 1891, when her first long poem "U moria" was featured in the "Russkoe obozrenie" magazine. Mirra's first major book "Poems (1889 - 1895)," the current one, brought her a tremendous success and won her The Pushkin Prize, the most prestigious award for the highest standard of literary excellence, in 1896, the year it was published. In the following 8 years, she would release 4 more volumes of her poetry. During the Soviet Era, Lokhvitskaia's work was dubbed "vulgar and narrow-minded" and largely ignored. That changed in the 1990s and she has been receiving, anew, the recognition she deserved.