![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #2](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_1.jpg)
![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #3](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_2.jpg)
![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #4](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_3-scaled.jpg)
![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #2](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_1-300x436.jpg)
![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #3](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_2-300x451.jpg)
![Image for L. TOLSTOY. Kritika dogmaticheskogo bogosloviia [Critique of Dogmatic Theology]. First edition, rare. Geneva, 1891-96. #4](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/1333_3-300x453.jpg)
First copy on the market in 40 years
Publication: Obshchee delo for M. Elpidine, Geneve, 1891-6.
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.
£3,750
In stock
First edition of one of Tolstoy’s main anti-clerical texts, in which he methodically rejects all the tenets of traditional religion. Like many of his religious writings, the Kritika was immediately banned in Russia, where it would see light only after the 1905-06 reforms, in the 4th and 5th volumes of Tolstoy’s Complete Works Forbidden by the Russian Censorship, ie. about 20 years after Tolstoy wrote it.
Tolstoy considered organised religion an obfuscation of the true Christian spirit, and maintained that if his faith was based solely on theological books, then reading them would certainly make him an atheist.
A pleasant example, retaining the original upper wrapper, where as usual the date differs from the title’s.
Rarely found. We could trace only one example selling at auction: the Diaghilev-Lifar copy, 40 years ago in 1975. We couldn’t trace any complete example in Russian auctions either, and WorldCat apparently locates 6 copies outside of Russia, incl. 4 in the US: Berkeley, Harvard, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (IL), UCLA; British Library and Genève.
Provenance
A.K. (initials handwritten in blue on the first title); Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).
Bibliography
Svod. Kat. zapreshch. pechati 2018 (with curious size of 13.5 x 9 cm); not in Kilgour (but a copy in Harvard).
Item number
1333
Two parts in one volume 8vo (21 x 14 cm). 370 pp. incl. title of each part, with blank last leaf.
Binding
Original publisher’s upper wrapper bouind in (near?) contemporary half leather over marbled boards.
Condition
Wrapper slightly worn and stained, inscription [‘v dvukh chastiakh’] deleted; margins lightly yellowed, occasional minor foxing, mostly marging and more present towards end, some small marginal repairs.
First book edition of one of the most famous Russian novels of the last century and a celebrated 'tamizdat'. Uncommon on the market, here in attractive condition.
![Image for S. ALEKSIEVICH. U voiny ne zhenskoe litso [The Unwomanly Face of War]. First edition, first issue, inscribed. Minsk, 1985. #2](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/3274_1-300x341.jpg)
First edition, first issue, an inscribed copy, of Aleksievich's important first book. She would go on and win the Nobel Prize of LIterature 30 years later, in 2015.
One of the most famous first editions of 20th-c. Russian literature: published by the CIA under a false imprint - or literature as a political weapon. A pleasant copy.
![Image for I. BRODSKII. Ostanovka v pustyne [Halt in Wilderness]. First edition, inscribed. New York, 1970. #2](https://www.pyrarebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/3085_1-300x442.jpg)
BRODSKII, Iosif [also Joseph BRODSKY]
Ostanovka v pustyne [Halt in the Wilderness; also A Stop in a Desert]
First edition of this important poetry collection by "the most popular Russian poet of the second half of the 20th century" (Shubinskii). A fine example of the first issue, boldly inscribed.
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