In striking wrappers

SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich

Odin den Ivana Denisovicha

[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich].

Publication: Flegon Press, London, 1962.

SOLZHENITSYN, Aleksandr Isaevich, Odin den Ivana Denisovicha

First edition of the celebrated author’s first book § a famous ‘pirate’ edition published without Solzhenitsyn’s consent. A very good copy, with the striking original wrappers.

Read More

£2,500

In stock

Our Notes & References

First edition of Solzhenitsyn’s first published book: a celebrated “pirate” edition published abroad without the author’s consent.

A very good example of the issue with the striking “bearded-man” cover, which Flegon used later in his own book about “the slanderer Solzhenitsyn”. There was another cover published, showing a watchtower instead; there is no priority firmly established, the watchtower being possibly the first.

The plot of Solzhenitsyn’s very first published novel is set in a Soviet labour camp in the 1950s and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.

The novel was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. After more than half a century since its publication the significance and influence of the deceptively simple story remains unsurpassed.

The novel first appeared in print in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novii Mir (New World). It was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history since never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed. The editor of Novii Mir, Aleksandr Tvardovskiy, wrote in a short introduction for the issue, titled “Instead of a Foreword”:

The author chose an ordinary day in the life of a labour camp prisoner from a reveille until lock up. Still, this “ordinary” day can’t but touch the hearts of the readers and let them feel overwhelming sorrow and pain for the fate of the people, who become so close and familiar through the pages of this novel.

Even though the characters are fictional the novel has a very personal feel. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) had first-hand experience of the Gulag, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for writing a derogatory comment in a letter to a fellow officer about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, whom he called “the whiskered one”.

Provenance

Signature to first leaf recto, dated 26.I. 1963; typed number to first leaf verso.

Bibliography

T. Mathew, “A guide to the Russian editions of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s major works”, Rare Book Review.

Item number

468

 

Physical Description

Octavo (24.2 x 16 cm). 67 pp.

Binding

Original printed wrappers.

Condition

Wrappers slightly soiled and a bit creased, minor chipped area of upper cover restored.

Request More Information/Shipping Quote

    do you have a question about this item?

    If you would like more information on this item, or if you have a similar item you would like to know more about, please contact us via the short form here.

      X