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Tag Archives: Russian

ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН

23 Tuesday Oct 2018

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Boris Pasternak, communist, declassified, Doctor Zhivago, documents, France, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Lyuba Basin, Milan, Nobel Prize for Literature, novel, novelist, Paris, poems, poet, Russia, Russian, Russian Revolition 1905, Société d'édition et d'ímpression mondiale, Soviet, tourists, United States Central Intelligence Agency, Western Europe, World War I, Борис Пастернаk, Борис Пастернак, ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН, Париж


“No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history’s organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.” — Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН
Борис Пастернаk
Париж, 1959

Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
Paris: Société d’édition et d’ímpression mondiale, 1959
PG3476 P27 D6 1959b

Just because its not a “first edition” and just because its “only a paperback” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a great story. We present the following case in point:

Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was a Soviet Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. In Russia, his first book of poems, My Sister, Life, is considered one of the most influential collections published in the Russian language. However, outside of Russia, Pasternak is best known for his 1957 novel, Doctor Zhivago. Critically depicting life between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and WWI, the manuscript was originally smuggled to Milan and published in 1957 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. The novel quickly rose to fame and by 1958 Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although Pasternak was forced to decline the prize by the Soviet government, Doctor Zhivago continued to be mass-produced outside the Soviet Union and throughout the non-Communist world.

In April 2014, the United States Central Intelligence Agency released dozens of declassified documents confirming that it had covertly distributed thousands copies of the original Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago to Soviet tourists in Western Europe and also funded the publication of a miniature, lightweight paperback edition that could be easily mailed or concealed in a jacket pocket. The front cover and the binding identify the book in Russian; the back of the book states that it was printed in France.

~~Contributed by Lyuba Basin and Luise Poulton

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Banned! — Ten Years of Uzbekistan

28 Friday Sep 2018

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Alexander Rodchenko, art, Art Review, censorship, Charles Hall, David King, Evgenia Ginzburg, Ken Campbell, London, Monotype Bodoni, photography, polychrome letterpress, portraits, Russia, Russian, Soviet, Stalin, staples, Uzbekistan, zinc plate


“We started a purge of our books. Nanny carried out pail after pailful of ashes. We burnt Radek’s ‘Portraits and Pamphlets,’ Friedland and Slutsky’s ‘History of Western Europe,’ Bukharin’s ‘Political Economy.’ My mother implored me so anxiously to get rid of Kautsky’s ‘History of Modern Socialism’ as well, that I gave in. Day by day the ‘Index’ grew longer, and the scale of our auto-da-fe grander. In the end we even had to burn Stalin’s ‘On the Opposition.’ Under the new dispensation this too had become illegal.” — Evgenia Ginzburg, as quoted in Ten Years of Uzbekistan

Ten Years of Uzbekistan
Ken Campbell (b. 1939) and David King (b. 1943)
London: K. Campbell, 1994
N7433.4 C36 T45 1994 oversize

Artist’s statement: “‘Ten Years of Uzbekistan’ is a collaboration with the photographer David King. During research for his archive on Soviet Art, King discovered a copy of a book designed by Alexander Rodchenko, who had been driven to obliterate, with ink and paint, the names and faces of those in that book who had fallen from the favour of and been destroyed by Stalin. While writing the text King discovered their names and, where possible, their fates. Ten portraits, nine altered by Rodchenko and the tenth of Stalin as an endpaper to Rodchenko’s book, were enlarged and layered over each other in a process of mutual silencing. I surrounded each of the marred faces with a printed frame that reflected both the page margins and, I hoped, the frame of a Russian ikon. This framing device is echoed in the preserving of photographs of the beloved and the dead. The frames were made from thin zinc plate glued to wooden mounts. During the violence of the printing process the zinc started to buckle and shift. The buckling gave strange printing effects. The movement was stopped by firing staples from a gun into the zinc. This produced odd images from the staples: chromosomic; buglike; giving hints of the buttoning of the lip. The same frame, but well ordered, was used to surround the texts of the introduction.

This work stands as witness to the victims of censorship, and to the shame of self-censorship as a strategy of survival. In Russia it is said ‘here we die for it’; meaning poetry.

Printed by polychrome letterpress using woodletter numerals and Monotype Bodoni type. Bound in black cloth in a black cloth slipcase.”

Edition of forty-five copies.

Review: “We find our way into the book rather slowly. The first pages are all-but blank, dominated by rich colours (notably a beautiful, deep but somehow acidic purple), mottled and marbled with others, as if corroded or polluted, each page dominated by broad, flat frame, which simply emphasises the emptiness of what is surrounded; it’s a little like being confronted with a precious silver photo-frame, still testifying to the preciousness of an image which has long since faded into blankness. Even the title, when we eventually reach it, is hard to read, printed in almost the same colour as the background, and partially obliterated by dark rectangles, like the stickers sometimes used by censors; we can just read the impression, coming through from the next page, of the ominous phrase ‘Here we die for it’. As yet, we have no way of making sense of what is, in fact, a sardonic Russian comment on the dangers of poetry.

… Often, in the book, the obscured head is printed with a biographical note, detailing the individual’s accomplishments and fate; sometimes the sense of loss is compounded by the blankness of the entry ‘Exact Fate Unknown’. Sometimes we begin to suspect that the same head has appeared more then once, with different names. Karimov’s blacked-out face creates a black hole so profound that we feel almost anything could be projected onto it, and this begins to emerge as the dominant theme of the whole publication – the one photo has appeared as a symbol of all that is good, and then becomes the repository (with equal lack of justice) of all that is unforgivable.” — Charles Hall, Art Review, London, 1994

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Stop and Smell the Flowers

24 Thursday May 2018

Posted by scott beadles in Uncategorized

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Alaska, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Asia, Australia, Bill Edwardes, botany, climate, commerce, découpage, E. C. Alexander, endangered, English, Europe, flora, flower specimens, flowers, France, French, German, Germany, Hebrew, herbaria, Holy Land, International Pressed Flower Art Society, J. Willard Marriott Library, Japan, Jerusalem, Joyce Fenton, Lyuba Basin, May, Mexico, Middle East, nomenclature, olive wood, Oshibana, plant species, poppies, Pressed Flower Craft Guild, pressed flowers, repository, Russian, Ruth Miller Staats, Samurai, San Francisco, seeds, Silk Road, sunflowers, taxonomies, The Popular Bookstore, The University of Utah, tourism, United Kingdom, United States, Valdez, Valdez Museum Historical Archive, vegetation, Worldwide Pressed Flower Guide

“But I must gather knots of flowers and buds, and garlands gay;
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.”
–  Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The May Queen”

When was the last time you stopped to smell the flowers? I did it just two days ago, when the purple and white lilac bushes in front of my house produced such an aroma after the rain that I had to stop in my tracks to take it in. Some days I’ll pick the poppies and sunflowers that grow wild in the backyard and set them in a vase on the kitchen table, and if I’m feeling particularly extra, I will even go out and buy an arrangement to add some oomph to the room.

Although my allergies have been getting worse and worse every year, my enthusiasm for flora has yet to subside. I’ve been enjoying the slower campus days at The University of Utah, when I can wander around outside the library and take in all of the new blooms. I am always impressed with the assortment of flowers lining the pathways, some of which I recognize as native to the state, while others look unfamiliar, yet still alluring.


 

Natural Flowers of the Holy Land
Jerusalem, 1900s
QK 378 N37 1900z


We might find flowers attractive for a number of reasons ranging from color, shape, texture or smell, but did you know the craft of pressing flowers is actually an ancient art that dates back to 16thcentury? It is said that Samurai warriors in Japan once practiced this art, called Oshibana, as part of their discipline to promote patience and harmony with nature, as well as to enhance their powers of concentration.

The art of drawing with petals gradually spread from Asia to the Middle East along growing trade networks of the Silk Road. One outcome of this global commerce and tourism were elaborate souvenir books, popular in the late 19th century, Jerusalem. Different renditions of Flowers of the Holy Land combined photographs of holy sites in and around Jerusalem with pressed flowers gathered from those sites. These flowers were artistically formatted, bound between olive wood covers, and included translations from Hebrew into French, German, English and Russian, as they were sold to visitors coming from different parts of the world.


 

 

Flowers of the Holy Land
Jerusalem, 1900s
QK89 F56


Around the same time, botanists in Europe began systematically collecting and preserving flower specimens from all over the world. No longer a simple art form, the pressed plant books allowed scientists to study the flora of other countries and understand the variety of plant taxonomies, geographic distributions, and to develop an efficient and stable nomenclature. Furthermore, the books are able to preserve a record of change in vegetation over time for future scientists who are tracking changes in climate and human impact. Some books can even be viable repositories, holding seeds of extinct or endangered plant species. These specimen books, or herbaria, are not just pretty to look at for they contain crucial knowledge on every page.


 

A Collection of Wild Flower of California
E.C. Alexander
San Francisco: The Popular Bookstore, 1895
QK 89 A375


Anyone can gather flowers and create their own pressed flower book. Like Ruth Miller Staats, a resident of Valdez, Alaska who sold cards, artwork and booklets of pressed flowers to tourists during the 1930s and 1940s. Although Ruth had been paralyzed from the waist down following an airplane crash (she had sustained a double compound fracture of both legs, fracture of the pelvis, and a fractured lumbar vertebrae), her friends and neighbors gathered flowers for her to compile the pieces. Many of her items can now be found in the Valdez Museum Historical Archive.

Wild Flowers of Alaska
Ruth M. Staats
Valdez, Alaska, 1930s
QK 89 S73


The craft of pressing flowers can also extend beyond books. Petals and leaves can be applied to trays and other wood furnishings using the technique of découpage. Those who have a deep interest in the art can join the Pressed Flower Craft Guild, founded by Joyce Fenton and Bill Edwardes in 1983. Other organizations include the International Pressed Flower Art Society and the Worldwide Pressed Flower Guild, with members coming from countries such as Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and United States.

So come by and smell the flowers and allow yourself to appreciate the little things in life. Reflect on what is beautiful, fragile and simple, such as this small collection of books.

~Contributed by Lyuba Basin, Rare Books

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Book of the Week — Opuscula mathematica

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Charles II, Duke of Parma, engraver, fonts, geometry, Giambattista Bodoni, Greek, hydraulics, Isaac Newton, Italy, mathemathics, matrices, musical notation, ornamental devices, Parma, Piedmont, Pietro Giannini, printer, printshop, publisher, punchcutter, punches, Roman, Russian, Saluzzo, Seville, Spain, type designer, type foundry, typographer, Vincenzo Riccati


“…the function of our Art is to put before our eyes…representation of anything which the human mind can split up and divide into a definite number of different parts, not infinitesimally small, which frequently recur in exactly the same form to play a part in that representation.” — Giambattista Bodoni, Manuale tipographica (1818)

Opuscula mathematica
Pietro Giannini (1740-1810)
Parma: Ex Typographia Regia, 1773
First edition
QA3 G43 1773

This scarce mathematical work on hydraulics and geometry was printed by Giambattista Bodoni. Bodoni was born in Saluzzo, Piedmont, Italy in 1740. He died in Parma, Italy in 1813. An engraver, type designer, printer and publisher, Bodoni was invited by the Duke of Parma to set up and run a printshop. In 1779, Bodoni opened his own type foundry. In 1782 Charles II of Spain named Bodoni his court typographer.

Bodoni is still recognized for his roman, Greek, Gothic, Asian and Russian fonts, and lines, borders, symbols, numbers and musical notation. He was the most prolific punchcutter in the history of printing: an inventory of his shop, compiled by his widow, revealed 25,491 punches and 50,283 matrices, each cut by hand. He was friend to kings, ministers and others in power, dubbed by them as “Re dei tipografi, tipografo dei re” (king of typographers, typographer of kings). He basked in popularity, receiving numerous high honors.

This plain edition, with simple yet gracious chapter-heading ornamental devices, is a great example of the beginnings of Bodoni’s signature style: wide margins; clear, solid type; and exquisitely designed and printed mathematical figures all point to Bodoni’s typographical genius.

Oh, yeah. And then there’s the math. Pietro Giannini was a student of Vincenzo Riccati (1707-1775) who urged Giannini to publish Opuscula Mathematica (1773). Opuscula is divided into three parts. In the first part, Giannini studied water falling through a hole. Isaac Newton had addressed this in his Principia, but Giannini’s work is less experimental, more mathematical. Giannini was appointed a professor of mathematics in Seville, Spain.

This edition contains ten engraved folding copper-engraved plates, each with multiple diagrams. It is illustrated with a woodcut device on title-page. Our copy is bound in original wrappers with an old manuscript spine label.

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Painting the Cities Red

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Reading

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1917, Armenian, artists, Asia, assassination, Berlin, Bolshevik, bourgeois, bourgeoisie, Catholic, Communist Party, comrades, court, Cuba, December, descendants, dissidents, Eastern European, economic, Egor Iakovlev, Europe, exile, Futurists, imperial, Imperial Russia, James Womack, Joseph Stalin, language, Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, literature, Lutheran, marches, Marina Tsvetaeva, Maxim Gorky, Mohammedan, monarchy, Moscow, October Revolution, Odessa, Orthodox Jew, peasantry, poetry, Programma, proletariat, propaganda, revolution, riots, Romanov, Russia, Russian, Russian Empire, Russian Futurist, Russian Revolution, Social-Democratic Labour Party, Socialist, stuntman, Tatar, Tsar, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarist, United States, Vladimir Lenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, wine riots, Winter Palace, working classes, writers, Zaum


“All for the People and all Through the People” — Programma

Revolution had been bleeding red on the tongues of Russian citizens for a least a decade before the fateful Autumn of 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power from Tsar Nicholas II, ending the 300 year monarchy of the Romanov family. Through a series of unanticipated events – seeming impossible and shockingly intertwined – the headstrong leftist Socialist revolutionaries took control of the Imperial government and captured the Winter Palace and became the world’s first socialist country. One hundred years later, we remember the Russian Revolution through the words of comrades, dissidents and descendants in a series of books found in our very own collection.

By the early 20th century another revolution had already swept across Europe, Asia and the United States. The industrial market was booming. Yet Imperial Russia found itself far behind in comparison to the surrounding, developing economies. In addition to newfound economic struggles, the country was becoming more difficult to govern as the population sprawled across 8.6 million square miles – nearly 1/6 of the earth’s landmass. Between the deadly winters and the barren soil, anyone outside the upper classes struggled to make a living and even struggled to live.

It was the contention between the different economic classes that became a fundamental component of Bolshevik strategy – aligning the proletariat with the peasantry to fight against the bourgeois leaders who controlled and exploited their working class citizens. Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the founding fathers of the Russian revolution, organized and educated the masses, inspiring everyday people to stand up and fight for equality and human rights. During the year of revolt, an outline called “Programma” was printed in Odessa by the Social-Democratic Labour Party, detailing the social, political and economic issues at hand, and its method to finally reclaim the country for the people.


Progamma
Trudovaia (narodno-sotsialisticheskaia) Partiia
Odessa: 1917
JN6598 T8 A12

“All citizens of Russia, without distinction of sex, preoccupation and disposition, should be equal before the law. In this way – a man and a woman, a Russian, a Pole, an Armenian, a Tatar, an Orthodox Jew, a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Mohammedan, an old believer, a stuntman – all should get the same rights …”

Unfortunately not all of Russia’s citizens were given the same opportunity to participate with the increasingly fashionable revolutionaries. In fact, of the 170 million people who lived in the vast territory, 3/4 had been labeled ‘peasants’ and most among them could not read. While the participation of the peasantry was crucial to overthrowing the Tsarist rule, many of these rural villagers suffered greatly in the coming months and years as dramatic changes in urban governments left their communities incredibly destabilized. Once Bolshevik power had been gained, it became quickly noticeable that the Revolution, according to both Lenin and Trotsky, would benefit neither the bourgeoisie nor the peasants of Russia – the rewards of Revolution were given solely to the working classes, and even then, at quite the cost.

Amid the riots and marches that had become common since February and March of 1917, writers and artists were compiling their own narratives about what was going on in the streets. Some were critical of the violence and looting. Maxim Gorky and Marina Tsvetaeva were two such writers who depicted the chaos of the ‘wine riots’ where the cities cellars were taken over by citizens and Bolsheviks alike. The Bolsheviks saw an enemy among their drunk comrades and “replied with machine-guns pouring lead into the bottles… [destroying] three million rubles’ worth of vintage in the vaults of the winter palace.” Tsvetaeva, who changed allegiances over time, was concerned over the newfound ‘freedom’ and her poems often reflected musings about humanity, growing mobs and the unstable political state. In her poem, “To Tsar, on Easter” Tsvetaeva addresses Tsar Nicholas II and imagines the fall of the Russian Empire. Just three months after her poem was written, the Tsar was forced to abdicate the throne, leaving power in the hands of a provisional government.


Poezija Revolutsiooni Moskvy
Il’ia Erenburg (1891-1967)
Berlin: 1922
PG3505 M7 P64

To Tsar, on Easter
Open, Open,
The gates of the tsar!
Darkness dimmed and poured out far.
With clean heat
Burns the altar –
Resurrect, Christ,
Yesterday’s tsar!

Without glory fell
Two-headed eagle.
Tsar – you were wrong.

He’ll remember inheritance
Many more times –
Byzantine sacrilege
Of your clear eyes.

Your judges –
Lightning and wave!
Tsar! God sought
You, not men.

But now there’s Easter
In all the land,
Sleep in your village
With a calm mind,
Don’t dream of
The banners red.

Tsar! Descendants
And ancestors – sleep.
There is a knapsack since
A throne you won’t keep.
– April 1917 (Translated by Ilya Shambat)

Although power had been stripped from the Tsar, the revolution was far from over. It would not be until October that the Bolsheviks would officially seize power. Behind the front lines many writers and artists worked to help deliver the party’s propaganda. By 1917, Vladimir Mayakovsky, renowned Russian Futurist, had already been a major player of the socialist cause for ten years. Tied to the political left, the Futurists often contributed to underground journals and protests, but they had their own agenda: seeking to reject the symbolic and romantic ideas enforced by an imperial Russia. Rather than conform to the stringent structures of literature developed by their renowned predecessors, they proposed a return to the earth and the primeval spirit of the Russian language. In doing so, writers and artists collaborated to develop books of poetry written in a style they passionately declared as Zaum. In the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, Mayakovsky wrote “Our March” – a reflection on the frenzy and madness that had been taking place. Mayakovsky’s and Tsvetaeva’s poems were both included in a small collection of Revolutionary poetry published in Berlin, 1922.

Our March
Let the squares ring to the tramp of revolt!
Lift your heads’ glorious mountain range higher!
We’ll cleanse all the cities around the world
With a flood even greater than Noah’s.

The days’ bull’s pied.
The years’ cart creaks.
Our god is speed.
Our heart’s drum beats.

Is our treasure, our gold not the loftiest thing?
Can we ever be stung by the wasp of a bullet?
Our weapon’s the songs that we sing.
Our voices are our gold bullion.

Lay yourself down, grass,
Cushion the days’ tread.
Rainbow, yoke the years’
Galloping steeds’ heads.

Look up! The skyful of stars is bored!
We weave our songs without the sky.
Hey, you there! Yes, you, Great Bear!
Demand we be taken to heaven alive.

Drink up the joy! Sing!
The veins’ spring’s sprung.
Heart! Fight! Ring!
Our breasts are the copper of kettledrums.
– December 1917 (Translated by James Womack)

With the Social-Democratic Labour Party officially in control, there was now the question of who among the party’s officials would take the role of leadership, Lenin or Trotsky. Leninism and Trotskyism became the two dominant perspectives of the socialist movement and, while similar in many ways, the debate between two caused major conflict within the party. Allegiances were made and votes were taken. Trotsky came before a Communist Party court, consisting of Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin, to defend his positions. In the end, Lenin would eventually take power in 1922, and Trotsky would be banished to exile yet again just five years later. During his ongoing split from the party, Trotsky’s commentary on the differences between ‘Leninism’ and ‘Trotskyism’ was published in Berlin, 1925. Written in two parts, Trotsky first details the fateful events of the October Revolution before giving his final response to the court. Ultimately, it was Stalin who arranged his assassination.


Trotskii pered sudom kommunisticheskoii partii: Uroki Oktiabria… Kamenev i Stalin. Leninizm ili trotskizm? Otvet Trotskomu
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
Berlin: 1925
DK265 T6 T73

Lenin had a different fate. While his reign over the country only lasted seven years, his influence over the people remained for much longer. He was the face of the Revolution, and subsequently, the face of freedom for many people. Unlike Stalin’s violent wrath, Lenin embodied a hope which, perhaps, is still sought-after to this day. Images of Lenin still remain throughout Russia and other Eastern European countries, and his revolutionary prowess even crossed the seas into countries such as Cuba. It could be argued that he has transcended the role of mere politician to a sort of religious icon. 100 years after the October Revolution, you can still visit his resting body, preserved in a massive mausoleum in Moscow – in a way, for the Russian people, he is ‘always alive.’ In a way, the Revolution is ongoing.


Vechno Zhivoi : fotoalʹbom
Egor Iakovlev. 1977
Moscow: 1977
DK254 L4 V43

Suggested Reading…

For the Voice
Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky
PG3476 M3 D5713 2000

Inside the Rainbow : Russian children’s literature, 1920-35
Julian Rothenstein and Olga Budashevskaya
PG3190 I5 2013

1917 : Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution
Boris Dralyuk
PG3213 A15 2016

Explodity: Sound, Image, and Word in Russian Futurist Book Art
Nancy Perloff
PG3065 F8 P47 2016

–Contributed by Lyuba Basin, Rare Books Assistant, known in these parts as “Golden Girl”

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Banned! — Лолита

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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American, banned, British Customs, British Isles, English, France, Gone With the Wind, Graham Greene, Lolita, London, Margaret Mitchell, Minister of the Interior, Modern Library, New York, novel, Paris, Phaedra, pornography, postscript, printing, publisher, Putnam, revolution, Russia, Russian, smuggled, Soviet Union, Sunday Times, translation, University of Utah, Vladimir Nabokov

«Лолита , свет моей жизни , огонь моих чресел . Грех mой , душа моя . Ло -ли –та…”

 

Lolita-cover Lolita-back Lolita-spine

Лолита
Владимир Набоков (1899-1977)
New York: Phaedra, Inc., Publishers, 1967
First hardcover edition in Russian

First published in Paris in 1955, then in New York City in 1958 and London in 1959, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, is a controversial masterpiece of English literature.

Originally published as a paperback by a relatively unknown publisher, the first printing of 5,000 copies sold out before year’s end. Graham Greene wrote in London’s Sunday Times that it was one of the three best books of the year. Other early reviews were hardly so generous. Many considered it pornographic. British Customs was ordered to seize copies coming into the British Isles. A year later, France’s Minister of the Interior also banned it.

Times change. In 1998, Lolita was included by Modern Library in its list of 100 best novels of the 20th century.

This is the first edition in Russian, translated by Nabokov, whose mother-tongue was Russian. He added a postscript that appears only in this edition, describing his ambivalence toward his translation. Nabokov’s American publisher, Putnam, chose not to publish the Russian edition, concerned that it would not be a commercial success. Perhaps they were satisfied enough with the response to their American edition, which went into a third printing within days and sold one hundred thousand copies within three weeks. Up until that time, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936), was the only other American novel to have done so well.

All of Nabokov’s writings had been banned in the Soviet Union, although copies of his work were smuggled in. Nabokov was, after all, the son of aristocratic Russians who fled the country during the Revolution. The first printing in Russia was not until 1989. The work, by the once-outlawed, un-favored son of the Soviet state was a stunning success. The first edition in the Russian language was first issued in wrappers. This is “issue b,” in pink cloth, with gilt title stamp along spine and with dust jacket. University of Utah copy donated by Anonymous.

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