Banned books - Ouvrages censurés | PY Rare Books

Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #2

First copy on the market in 40 years

Kritika dogmaticheskago bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]

Obshchee delo for M. Elpidine, Geneve, 1891-6. £3,750

Rare first edition of Tolstoy's important critical religious text, published in Geneva as it was impossible to have it authorised in the Russian empire. No copy traced on the market in recent decades - this one a pleasant example.

Image for TSVETAEVA, M. Poet i vremia. First edition. Prague, 1932. #2

The great poetess' comments on poetry

TSVETAEVA, Marina Ivanovna

Poet i vremia [The Poet and Time]

Volia Rossii, Prague, 1932. £650

Scarce first publication of Tsvetaeva's important essay on poetry.

Image for J. BRODSKY. Two volumes of poetry. First editions, inscribed. Ann Arbor, 1977. #2

Nobel-Prize winning poetry pre- and post-emigration - "avec best pozhelaniiami"

BRODSKII, Iosif [also Joseph BRODSKY]

Konets prekrasnoi epokhi. Stikhotvoreniia 1964-1971 [with] Chast rechi. Stikhotvoreniia 1972-1976 [The End of a Beautiful Era. Poems 1964-1971 [with] Part of Speech. Poems 1972-1976].

Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1977. £7,750

Great gathering of both volumes, in first editions, both inscribed to Vandelos-Legkaia, a figure of the Russian community in the USA.

Image for S. DOVLATOV. Marsh odinikikh. First edition, inscribed. Holyoke, 1983. #2

A chronicle of the early 1980s in the US Russian community

DOVLATOV, Sergei

Marsh odinokikh [The March of the Lonely]

Holyoke, New England Publishing Co, 1983. £2,250

First edition thus, inscribed to a fellow journalist and author.

Image for S. DOVLATOV. Nashi [Ours]. First edition, inscribed. Ann Arbor, 1983. #2

"One only wants to be like Chekhov"

DOVLATOV, Sergei

Nashi [Ours]

Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1983. £2,500

First edition of this collection of short stories by the famous Russian author. An appealing example, inscribed by Dovlatov to a figure of the US Russian emigration.

Image for S. DOVLATOV. Zona. First edition, inscribed. Ann Arbor, 1982. #2

His "most important book" - inscribed

DOVLATOV, Sergei

Zona: zapiski nadziratelia [The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard's Story]

Ermitazh, Ann Arbor, 1982. £3,000

First edition Dovlatov's famous work, inscribed to a figure of the Russian emigration in the US.

Image for P. TKACHEV. Anarkhiia mysli. First edition, Geneva, 1879. #2

"More of a predecessor of the Bolsheviks than Marx and Engels" (Berdiaev)

TKACHEV, Petr Nikitich

Anarkhiia mysli: sobranie kriticheskikh ocherkov [Anarchy of Thought: a Collection of Critical Essays]

London [but Geneva], Izd. zhurnala "Nabat", 1879. £1,450

Important little book announcing Lenin and the Russian Revolution. First separate edition, scarce, and here in an attractive binding, rather unusual for this type of text.

Image for S. ESENIN. Poems of Scandalist. First edition, in Russian. Berlin, 1923. #2

My best poems - in Isadora Duncan's company

ESENIN, Sergei (also Sergei YESENIN)

Stikhi skandalista [Poems of a Scandalist]

Nakanune for Blagov, Berlin, 1923. £3,500

Pleasant example of the frst edition of this important collection. With a famous cycle, banned in the USSR. Published in Berlin but scarce on the market outside Russia.

Image for A. AKHMATOVA. 50 Stikhotvorenii [50 Poems]. Paris, 1963. In fine condition. #2

Unauthorised edition

AKHMATOVA, Anna

50 stikhotvorenii [50 poems]

Paris, YMCA-Press, 1963. £650

Fine copy, in its original printed wrappers, of this large-format edition of some of the poems of Russia's great poetess. Printed with a mimeograph machine.

Image for J. BRODSKY. Verses and Poems, first edition in the original Russia. USA, 1965. #2

A Nobel Prize's first book

BRODSKII, Iosif [also Joseph BRODSKY]

Stikhotvoreniia i poemy [Verses and Poems]

Inter-Language Literary Associates, Washington, D.C.-New York, 1965. £750

First edition of an important start: the future nobel prize winner's first collection of poems that had to be published abroad after he was sentenced to five years of hard labor for "social parasitism" in 1964.

Image for S. COLLINS. Present State of Russia. First edition, London, 1671. #2

Drunk "very unhandsome" Circassian ladies and Russian mushrooms

[COLLINS, Samuel]

The Present State of Russia, in a Letter to a Friend at London, written by an eminent person residing at the great czars court at Mosco [sic] for the space of nine years

John Winter for Dorman Newman, London, 1671. £3,000

Great (if often negative) early account of pre-petrine Russia, with an important portrait of Tsar Alexei and a famous chapter on mushrooms - among many other remarks and anecdotes. Attractive example of the first edition.

Image for [CUSTINE] M. ERMOLOV. Encore quelques mots sur l'ouvrage... First edition, Paris, 1843. #2

Rare anti-Custine booklet

[CUSTINE] – M[ikhail ERMOLOV]

Encore quelques mots sur l'ouvrage de M. de Custine : La Russie en 1839

Lacour et Maistrasse for Ferra, Paris, 1843. £225

First edition of this 'comment' on Custine's celebrated description of Russia, part of a counter-propaganda campaign by the Russian empire. Very rare: no copy traced on the market nor in Americas.

Image for P. BORANETSKII. Third Russia. First edition of magazine, in Russian, complete set. Paris, 1932-39 #2

Innovative philosophy and current affairs in the 1930s

BORANETSKII, Petr, Nikolai KLEPININ and others

Tretia Rossiia. La Troisième Russie

Parizh, Boranetskii, 1932-39. £1,450

Complete set of this scarce magazine of Russian émigrés in Paris, dealing or, rather, reflecting on some important international political issues of the 1930s, and trying to elaborate a new philosophy, rejecting at the same time the Communists, Democrats, Conservatives and Christians. An excellent copy in publisher's wrappers.

Image for POTOTSKII-SHAPOVALENKO. Guide for the Propagandist of the People's Monarchy. First edition, in Russian. Argentine, 1954. #2

Propaganda against propaganda

POTOTSKII, N[ikolai] [pseud. for Nikolai SHAPOVALENKO]

Sputnik propagandista narodnoi monarkhii. Monarquia democrática: Guida del propagandista [Democratic Monarchy: The Propagandist's Guide]

Nasha strana, Buenos Aires, 1954. £195

First edition of this anti-USSR and anti-communist work, focusing on the right speech to have to spread monarchist views for Russia. An uncommon South-American imprint.

Image for HERBERSTEIN. Rerum Moscoviticarum, first book edition in Russian. St. Petersburg, 1866. #2

Authorised, but censored, with three pages in one

[HERBERSTEIN, Sigismund] Sigizmund GERBERSHTEIN and I. N. ANONIMOV (transl.)

Zapiski o Moskovii. (Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii) [Notes about Muscovy]

Bezobrazov i komp., Skt. Peterburg, 1866. £1,750

Finally available in Russia, more than 300 years after the first edition: this is the first book edition of Herberstein's groundbreaking travel account. A pleasant copy, with provenance, and showing a remarkable censor's afterthought, resulting in an interesting pagination feature.

Image for N.A. BUTMI. Tainyia obshchestva i Iudei. First edition, Shanghai, 1934. #2

Russian fascist printing in Shanghai

BUTMI, N.A

Tainyia Obshchestva i Iudei [Secret Societies and the Jews]

Shankhai, Izd-vo D. V. Otdela russkoi fashistskoi partii, January 1934. £475

Rare booklet of 'great Russian patriotism', covering one of the favorite themes of a part of the émigré community. Printed in China by Russians with Nazi sympathies.