Search Results: Books:Slavic Literature:Featured from ZH BOOKS

Berlin: I. P. Ladyzhnikova, 1920. First edition thus; 5 x 7 ½; pp. [4], 5-559, [1]; original embossed blue cloth over boards; gilt title to spine; few small nicks to head and tail and some fading to spine; a closed cut to inner margin of p. 143 repaired; several page corners somewhat brittle; overall in very good- condition.Tolstoy published Childhood pseudonymously (with only the initials L. N.) in The Contemporary journal in 1852. Delighting the editor of the magazine Nikolai Nekrasov and gaining instant appreciation by the public, he followed it with Boyhood and Youth to form a biographical trilogy. An expressionist exploration of the life of a little boy, the novel combined true stories, facts, fiction, and emotional expressions to become one of Tolstoy’s most beloved works.

Berlin: I. P. Ladyzhnikova, 1919. First edition thus; 5 x 7 ½; pp. [4], 5-657, [1]; original embossed brown buckram; gilt title to spine; minor fading to boards and wear; near fine condition.Goncharov’s Oblomov, his second and best known novel, was first printed in 1859 in the literary magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski. It had evolved from the short story Son Oblomova, published a few years earlier, which was eventually incorporated as a chapter in the finished novel. Uproariously popular, the work and the main character inspired the creation of the literary term ‘Oblomovshchina’ (Oblomovism) to describe a person possessing personality traits such as extreme laziness and inertia.

Berlin: Slovo, 1921. First edition thus; 4 ½ x 6 ½; pp. [6], 5-323, [5]; original beige boards printed in black; red cloth spine with gilt title and decorations; some rubbing to corners and faint discolored spots to covers; internally clean; portrait frontis; very good or better. Fyodor Tiutchev - considered by many to be one of the three great Russian Romantic poets (the other two being Pushkin and Lermontov) was, interestingly enough, not particularly well-known for his writing during his lifetime. He himself called his poems bagatelles and considered them not worthy of publishing. Disagreeing with him, Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Turgenev issued a tome of his verses in 1854 without any help or input from Tiutchev. The current book contains many of his earliest works as well as his political poems – the latter expressing his wildly-swinging political views from militant Pan-slavism to liberal freedom of expression.

Berlin and Paris: Russkoe Iskusstvo, 1921-1926. Seven issues (No. 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12); 9 ½ x 12 ½; all first editions except #1 and #2 which are the second edition of the same corresponding months; illustrated throughout including numerous plates mounted on leaves with captions printed; pages mostly very clean (No. 12 has small chips to upper corners of covers and a spot to fore-edge of first 2 pages only; No. 6 has faint foxing to lower margin of first 2 pages); colors bright; few small chips to corners of wraps (not affecting illustrations); some wear to spines with some loss of paper; #11 missing front cover, else all pages and wraps present and securely attached; slight age-toning to covers; overall in very good condition.Possibly the most influential and famous of the post-revolutionary art and literature journals, Zhar-Ptitsa (Firebird) was first printed in Berlin in 1921. A total of 14 issues were published at irregular intervals from 1921 to 1926. A… Read More