Chto Delat? [What is to be Done?]

St. Petersburg, 1905. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The most influential Russian novel ever written--First Book Edition in Russia

CHERNYSHEVSKY [TCHERNICHEFSKY]. Chto Delat? [What is to be Done?], St. Petersburg, 1905. 1 leaf + TP + [3] - 456 + 1 leaf. Octavo. FIRST BOOK EDITION

The first book edition in Russia of the most influential Russian novel ever written. First published in serial form in 1863 (in The Contemporary), Chernyshevsky's magnum opus is considered the single most important work of modern revolutionary thought. "[N]o work in modern literature, with the possible exception of Uncle Tom's Cabin, can compete with "What Is to Be Done?" in its effect on human lives and its power to make history. For Chernyshevsky's novel far more than Marx's Capital, supplied the emotional dynamic that eventually went to make the Russian Revolution" (Joseph Frank).

Chernyshevsky wrote the story of Vera Pavlovna, “a love story (as identified in his own preface) to redeem the reputation of the new intellectuals. The character of Bazarov, in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, soiled the reputation of the new intellectuals, presenting them as nihilistic. Chernyshevsky rejected this characterization as he asserted a vision of society that embraced the scientific materialism, rational egoism, utilitarianism, and positivism of the time. Later, Dostoevsky would reject Chernyshevsky’s philosophical vision in his Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment.

CONDITION: Very good in contemporary quarter leather with marbled boards. Wear to edges. Ex-libris stamp to front free endpaper and title page. Pages lightly browned, much less so than usual.