Petersburgskie povesti
Moscow: Academia, 1937. Hardcover. Folio. 137 (5)pp. Original decorative cloth with brown debossed illustration and lettering on cover, brown lettering on spine, protected by modern mylar. Beveled edges. Illustrated half-title. Frontispiece. Classic Russian tales by Gogol offering gloomy, bleak short stories about St. Petersburg. Gogol describes a physically tangible St. Petersburg with logical topographical indications of existing locations on one hand, and an imaginary world in the fashion of "fantastic realism" on the other.
The three stories "Nevsky Prospect", "Nose", and "The Overcoat" are illustrated with 15 b/w offset reproductions (plus frontispiece) of "fantastic" drawings by the Jewish, Soviet and Russian avant-garde artist Nathan Altman, most of them full page. Altman is known for his Cubist paintings, his stage designs (Habimah Theatre and the Jewish State Theatre in Moscow), and book illustrations. Text in Russian. Binding with some wear at upper right corner and head and tail of spine, light fraying, rubbed and few small stains on front, light soiling on back cover. Light foxing of free endpaper, half-title and title page, few minor blue spots on inside front cover. Some age toning of block and blue, stamped number, 357, on back free endpaper. Binding in overall good, interior in good+ to very good condition. g to vg. Item #41668
Price: $750.00