Search Results: Literature: Russian and neighbors from PY Rare Books

First separate edition of Tolstoy's answer to Chekhov – a very good example of this large-format edition, unopened in the charming art-nouveau wrappers and illustrated with plates celebrating the author: three portraits and a view of his tomb in the woods. Edited by Vladimir Chertkov, Tolstoy's literary executor, author of the preface and a major figure in Tolstoy's late publishing history.
According to Tolstoy's daughter Alexandra, the impetus for the birth of the play was Tolstoy's response to Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1900. Noting that it 'lacked action', Tolstoy was "suddenly seized with the desire to write a play which had been in his mind since the middle of the nineties. He immediately made an outline, based on a [true] story. … It concerned a decent, upright woman married to a weak man, a drunkard. Abandoned by him, and in love with another man, the woman persuaded her husband, when he reappeared, to pretend suicide in order that she might remarry. When the fraud… Read More

The Pantheon of the Silver Age - a complete set.
Scarce complete set of all five issues of this important almanac, which printed, often for the first time, the works of censored Russian authors. As a result, it includes most of the best Russian authors and poets of the 20th century.Contents include especially:- Vol. I: Akhmatova, Poema bez geroia [Poem Without a Hero]: the first publication of Akhmatova's major work- Vol. II: 57 poems by Mandelshtam, and Nabokov, Two poems- Vol. III: Akhmatova, Nas chetvero ['Us Four', dedicated to Tsvetaeva), Mandelshtam, Tri epigrammy; Four novellas by Babel - Vol. IV: Pasternak, notes for the fantasy 'Poema o blizhnem'; Akhmatova, essay on Mandelshtam; Brodsky, Poems, Mandelshtam, Poems; with portraits plates of Pasternak, Akhmatova, Vsevolod Meyerhold; Stenograph from the first trial of Iosif Brodsky- Vol. V: Tsvetaeva, Perekop, Posmertny Podarok, Autobiography; Brodsky, Poems; Nabokov, poems.
ProvenanceRobert Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted… Read More

Fine, fresh example of uncommon first edition of one of the earliest attempts to systematise the history of Armenian literature.
Spanning a period from II century until mid XVII century, the present volume mentions the works of Gregory the Illuminator, Mesrop Mashtots and other key figures in Armenian history.
The Armenian Somal was Archbishop of Siuna and General Abbot of the celebrated Congregation of the Armenian monks of San Lazzaro degli Armeni.
ProvenanceSan Biagio degli Armeni (Roman church; bookplate to upper pastedown).
DescriptionOctavo (22 x 15 cm). pp. xix, 240, errata leaf; just a few spots, leaf 1/8 with marginal paper flaw. Contemporary half-calf over blue marbled boards, flat spine with gilt lettering and decorations in compartments, speckled edges.

A highly critical review of one of the best and most famous Russian novels. A scarce pamphlet, written by a 1812 Russian soldier, here in its first separate edition, published before the full appearance of Tolstoy's saga, which was being brought by Ris in Moscow, in 1868 through to 1869, the year Norov (1795-1869) died.
Avraam Norov (1795—1869) was a statesman, travel writer and noted book collector: he was Minister of Education in 1853-58 and he published a catalogue of his library this same year 1868; his 15,000-volume strong collection (incl. about 150 incunabula) is now in the Russian State Library in Moscow. He had just started his military career when Napoleon invaded Russia. As a cadet, Norov took part in a number of battles, and he lost a leg at Borodino.Naturally, Norov felt very strongly about Tolstoy's saga, which was being published. Having read the first three parts that appeared in print by 1868, he thought that Tolstoy's work lacked patriotism, respect towards the defenders of the… Read More

Very good example of the first edition, in contemporary binding; rare such.One of Dostoevsky's great novels, and the first of his books published by Dostoevsky himself.Besy captures "the full grandeur of Dostoevsky's extraordinary endeavor, which is nothing less than to write a symbolic history of the moral-spiritual travails of the Russian spirit" (Frank, pp.430-434). It is his most overtly political work, and a ruthless exposition of contemporary revolutionary movements. The serialisation of this work, in Katkov's periodical The Russian Messenger, broke down when Katkov refused to print 'Stavrogin's Confession', an episode which he found particularly shocking."As a political tract, a portrayal of sick minds, and a study of the manipulation of groups, 'The Possessed' remains Dostoevsky's masterpiece" (Terras).***Customers considering purchasing this item will be given a longer, much more detailed note on the work, its background, its influence***DescriptionThree parts in one volume 8vo (21.4 x 15.5… Read More

The first complete edition - and the first book edition - of the celebrated novel. A very good example, in contemporary bindings.
Tolstoy started writing Anna Karenina in early 1873; in May 1873 he finished the first draft. Many drafts would follow: Tolstoy was searching for that perfect opening line, a perfect name for his heroine, perfectly balanced plot lines. In one of the drafts Anna is called Pushkina: Tolstoy gave her physical features of Pushkin's eldest daughter Maria ("the little wilful tendrils of her curly hair that would always break free about her neck and temples", hereafter trans. C.Garnett). Several drafts opened with a scene at a farm fair: Ordyntsev (future Levin) is exhibiting his livestock and by chance meets Alabin (future Stiva). In another draft, Tatiana (future Anna) leaves her husband for Balashov (future Vronsky), gets a divorce, but, unhappy in the company of her new dissolute friends, drowns herself in the Neva river. Eventually, Tolstoy came to choices that had made the… Read More

FIRST EDITION OF THE AENEID IN ARMENIAN; A BEAUTIFULLY BOUND EXAMPLE WITH ARISTOCRATIC PROVENANCE.
This translation of Virgil's masterpiece was completed by Etvart Hiwrmiwz (Edward Hurmuzian, 1799-1876); it is written in verses of classical Armenian, and explained with an introduction and abundant notes.
It is also illustrated: by three plates due to French artists (the portrait even published by Furne in Paris) and a lithographed frontispiece and illustrated title created specifically for this edition. The edition was reprinted in 1878.
Scarce: we could not trace any other example on the market in recent years. About a dozen copies can be found in public institutions worldwide, including a handful in the US, and apparently none in Italy. Absent from Princeton's Junius Spencer Morgan Collection of Virgil's works.
Provenance'From Percy Radcliffe to his father, June 5th 1848' (i.e. Joseph Percival Pickford Radcliffe, 1824-1908, later 3rd Baronet; manuscript note on flyleaf; given to:); Sir Joseph… Read More

First publication of the poem "Christopher Columbus", illustrated by the famous futurist artist and Maykovsky's friend. One of only three works published by Mayakovsky in the US; scarce: Worldcat locates only four physical copies (Harvard (2), Penn State, University of Notre Dame), to which we can add one copy at RNB and one at the Slavonic Library in Prague. We could not trace any other copy at auction in the West, and only three in Russia.
"Mayakovsky was very fond of this little book; it was always on the bookshelf of the desk in his room on Lubyanka lane" (Mayakovsky museum, our translation here and below).
The leading poet of Revolutionary Russia, Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) attempted to get to the States three times: twice his visa was rejected and the third time he managed to obtain a visa to Mexico first. On 21 June 1925, Mayakovsky departed the French port of Saint-Nazaire for Mexico on the transatlantic ship "Espagne". The present poem "Khristofor Kolomb" ["Christopher Columbus"] was… Read More

The first and very influential Russian anthology for children, especially remarkable for Shishkov's original adaptation.
A fine example, in contemporary binding, of the third printing, the last of the 18th century. Dedicated to Princess Ekaterina Dashkova (1743-1810), a close friend of Catherine the Great, the first woman in the world to head a national academy of sciences, the first woman in Europe to hold a government office and the first female member of the American Philosophical Society.
The first edition of Campe's celebrated anthology for children came out in Russian in 1783 (Part I) and 1785 (Part 2).It was published by Dashkova's Academy of Sciences and was an instant bestseller, as it was the first Russian anthology of short literary texts intended specifically for children, just preceding the children's magazine Detskoe chtenie dlia serdtsa i razuma (1785-89) and the later Grech's Izbrannyia mesta iz russkikh sochinenii (1812). Campe's German Kleine Kinderbibliothek, taking 12 volumes… Read More

Tolstoy's first editing of the first two parts of War and Peace; the earliest appearance in print of the celebrated novel.
At the beginning of 1863, Tolstoy begins writing a novella about the fate of a Decembrist. During this work, Tolstoy delves into the more global topic of Decembrism as a socio-historical phenomenon and shifts his narrative to the Napoleonic Wars and the events of 1805-1807 which, according to the writer, formed the generation of the future participants of the Decembrists revolt in 1825.By the end of 1864, the first part of the novel that would later become War and Peace was almost completely ready. In October 1864, Tolstoy writes a letter to Mikhail Katkov, founder of Russkii Vestnik periodical, offering to publish his new work for a very high, unprecedented fee at the time -- 300 rubles per printed page. Katkov, after long negotiations, agrees to these terms because Tolstoy was already very popular among readers and the publication of such a writer could significantly increase… Read More

The first edition of one of Tolstoy's greatest and most popular short stories: a fine example, with the original wrappers.This copy bears the correct first issue points: the printed wrapper is priced 20 kopeks, and the text shows the printed censorship date of 17 February 1895.
Master and Man proved hugely popular, selling 15,000 copies within four days of its publication on 05 March 1895. To meet demand, Posrednik – Tolstoy's own publishing house – issued another edition on 09 March, priced at 3 kopeks.Master and Man reflect aspects of Tolstoy's own spiritual conversion, and is sometimes seen as a companion piece to Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886)
ProvenanceProchian (bookplate). Eden Martin, prominent American collector.
DescriptionTwelvemo (19.8 x 13.1 cm).Binding20thcentury red quarter morocco preserving the original wrappers and spine, these printed in red and black on cream paper.ConditionWrapper spine worn, light wear to the covers; occasional faint marginal soiling. ref: [1334]

First edition of this important collection of stories on Soviet labour camps, which Shalamov (1907-82), a poet and man of letters on the wrong side of the Soviet authorities, experienced repeatedly during the entire reign of Stalin, from 1929 to the early 50s.
Kolyma, where Shalamov spent most of his sentences, is a remote, sub-arctic region of north-eastern Siberia, where gold and platinum were discovered shortly before the Russian revolution. During the intensive industrialisation under Stalin, Kolyma became the most notorious region for the Gulag labour camps: a "pole of cold and cruelty" in the Gulag system as Solzhenitsyn described it. The celebrated poet Osip Mandelshtam died in 1938 on the way there, in a transit camp where Shalamov had been about a year earlier: the latter wrote Sherry Brandy, a short story of this tragic end, which was included in these Kolyma Tales.
A "collection of brief sketches, vignettes, and short stories, [Kolyma Tales] chronicles the degradation and dehumanization of… Read More

An attractive, fresh example of this scarce first edition. This is the first book by Nabokov published outside Russia, and his first collection of poems published commercially.
Full notice available upon simple request
DescriptionSmall 8vo (16.2 x 12.2 cm). [3]-64 pp. incl. leaf with publisher's device, title and section title.BindingOriginal publisher's printed wrappers, with original staples.ConditionWrappers slightly soiled or stained, just a bit discoloured, spine foot a bit chipped with small splits to lower hinges, lower cover with small trace of paper label and small marginal closed tear; without the first blank leaf (pp. [1-2]) and except a couple of very minor pencil marks a very fresh copy internally.BibliographyJuliar A5.1 ref: [2073]

First edition of Solzhenitsyn's first published book: a celebrated "pirate" edition published abroad without the author's consent.

A very good example of the issue with the striking "bearded-man" cover, which Flegon used later in his own book about "the slanderer Solzhenitsyn". There was another cover published, showing a watchtower instead; there is no priority firmly established, the watchtower being possibly the first.
The plot of Solzhenitsyn's very first published novel is set in a Soviet labour camp in the 1950s and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.
The novel was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. After more than half a century since its publication the significance and influence of the deceptively simple story remains unsurpassed.
The novel first appeared in print in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novii Mir (New World). It was an… Read More

Very rare: we could not find any examples of Nabokov in samizdat in the West, and only one example of Nabokov's samizdat poetry at auction in Russia.With nice provenance.
This samizdat selection of poems by Nabokov from 1918-1939 is copied from the illegal in the USSR, large edition of his collected Russian poems Stikhi [Poetry] (1979, Ardis, Ann Arbor), which was prepared by the author himself and finalised by his wife Vera after his death in 1977. Nabokov, who "for a long time considered himself first and foremost as a poet" (Malikova), left a considerable poetic legacy: his "almost complete edition of poetry" (Vera Nabokov), Stikhi, consists of almost 250 poems, from which the author of this samizdat chose 40, and even added a title and a table of content for this smaller, 'home edition' for personal use. A couple of titles in French is also added in text manually for the author may not have had any Latin type.
Most of the selected poems describe narrator's longing for home, reflections about… Read More

A remarkable example of revolutionary poetry during the Silver Age, and of provincial publishing during the Civil War.
A unique copy, with the linocut coloured by contemporary hand and inscribed by Evangulov and Ivnev(?) to the artist of the striking cover, Ivan Ivanov:
Талантливому автору нашей обложки худ. Ив. Иванову на память этот "Костер" горящий в наших умах / 17.IX.1920 / Геор[гий] Евангулов
[To the talented illustrator of the cover of our book, artist Iv. Ivanov, a gift of this "Campfire" lighting up our minds / 17.IX.1920 / Geor[giy] Evantulov].
Дорогой Ваничка! А дальше не хватило пороху. Р.И. [Рюрик Ивнев (?)].
[Dear Vanichka! To write more I haven't got what it takes. R.I. (Riurik Ivnev?)].

Very rare.
WorldCat locates only one copy, in the Getty research Institute, to which we could add the RNB's copy, uncoloured. Not in Savine.
This collection of… Read More

The first complete poetic French translation of Pushkin's poem that "raised him to the summit of Russian Parnassus" (Terras). This is also the first separate book edition in French, and the second illustrated book by Pushkin in France.Strikingly illustrated by an original Russian female artist, and this copy inscribed by the translator: a politically-engaged playwright and one of the main figures of the feminist theatre movement in France.Only 500 copies printed: scarce, especially on the market, as we could not trace any example at auction outside Russia, including France. Worldcat locates only 5 copies: 2 in the US (NYPL and Pennsylvania) and 3 in France (Université Côte d'Azur, Strasbourg, BnF).Aleksandr Pushkin's (1799-1837) first complete book, Ruslan and Ludmila was published in 1820 and sold out almost immediately. In 1823, a French translation of an extract appeared in the Anthologie russe by Dupré de Saint-Maure: this was Pushkin's very first appearance in Western Europe. The full French… Read More

A presentation copy of the first expanded edition, inscribed by Akhmatova to her editor and co-translator, the linguist Aleksandr Kholodovich: 'As a memento of that time when we worked on this book. Amicably, Akhmatova, 15 January 1959'.
This edition adds 37 poems to the edition issued in 1956. Akhmatova worked on all 212 poems in this collection: Kholodovich prepared a preliminary translation, which Akhmatova then translated into appropriate verses. The demand for such a niche subject, prompting an expanded edition so soon after the first, may reflect general interest in Korea following the war on the peninsula; but more likely reflects the enduring demand for any work by Akhmatova, after she had been silenced for so long. With Stalin's death in 1953, the grip of totalitarianism loosened somewhat, and Akhmatova began to be given paid translation work.
ProvenanceAnna Akhmatova (presentation inscription in blue ink to:); Aleksandr Alekseevich Kholodovich (1906-1977, linguist); Robert Eden Martin (b.… Read More

"ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO GO VERY FAR TO GAIN AN IMMENSE APPRECIATION FOR THE MAGNITUDE OF ZOHRAPIAN'S CONTRIBUTION" (COX)

THE FIRST CRITICAL EDITION OF THE BIBLE IN ARMENIAN, ITS "PRINCIPAL EDITION"(Cox), almost 140 years after the first Armenian Bible, printed in Amsterdam in 1666.
Giovanni Zohrab (Hovhannes Zohrapean, or Zohrapian, 1756-1829) was a Benedictine monk at the celebrated Armenian monastery on the island of San Lazzaro near Venice. He chose as basis for his edition the oldest complete, dated Armenian Bible at his disposal, the Venetian manuscript MS V1508 of 1319, against which he collated 8 other manuscripts of the whole Bible and 20 of the New Testament kept in Venice's Mxit'arist collection. The result of these comparisons can be seen in Zohrab's footnotes, which quote major variations in the manuscripts he examined (which are however usually identified in general terms such as 'some witnesses,' 'one example,' 'many' etc).
Zohrab's remarkable and long-lasting achievement was published in… Read More

FRESH EXAMPLE OF THE DELUXE VERSION ON JAPON IMPÉRIAL (№10 OF ONLY 18 COPIES), WITH THE TWO ADDITIONAL SUITES AND SIGNED BY SCHIFFRIN, who translated and published the work. One suite is in colour, like in the book, the other in black and white; the total print run was only 445 copies.
Shukhaev (1887-1973) studied at the Higher Artistic School of the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg from 1906 to 1912 under Dmitrii Kardovskii, who taught him the art of fine draughtsmanship.
The artist's collaboration with Schiffrin started with his illustrations for Pushkin's Queen of Spades, which met success upon publication in 1923. For his Godounov, Shukhaev drew on the Russian icon painting tradition, contemporary with the actual Boris Godunov, and managed to combine it with dramatic shapes and bold colours so representative of Russian art in Paris in the 1920s. The striking result demonstrates artist's extraordinary ability to visually communicate the atmosphere of the written work.
Shukhaev's Godounov was not… Read More