Crime and Punishment; a Russian realistic novel by DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor - 1886

New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1886. A fresh, bright copy with skillful restoration at ends of spine, internally clean and fresh. 8vo. 456 pages. Portrait frontispiece of the author; one-page publisher's advertisement at end, with this work listed first and priced $1.50. Publisher's tan cloth stamped in maroon and gilt. First American edition, an unusually fine copy of a scarce book commonly found in worn and frayed condition, and rarely so bright. There is no priority between this and the first English edition (Vizitelly, London) which carries the same translation and is printed from the same setting. Though uncredited in the book, the translation was made by Frederick Whishaw, a Russian-born British novelist, poet and musician. He translated a number of works by Dostoevsky in the 1880a which were published by Henry Vizetelly in London and Crowell in New York. See Maurice Beebe and Christopher Newton, "Dostoevsky in English: A Selected Checklist of Criticism and Translations." Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, 1958, pp. 271-291. Crowell's American edition seems to be so scarce that it eluded their census of editions.

Indeed it so scarce that WorldCat/OCLC locates only nine copies in institutions (U of Chicago, U of Illinois, Mississippi, Mohawk Valley, NY Public, U of New Mexico, U of Sci & Tec, Virginia, and VMI), and these include imperfect, defective, and rebound copies. Either of the first editions in English are scarce at best, and exponentially so in this condition. Line, Bibliography of Russian Literature in English Translation to 1945.