Eliasberg, Aleksandr; [With an Introduction by] Mann, Thomas - Russkaia Literatura V Portretakh I Pis'Menakh [Russian Literature in Portraits and Letters]

Miunkhen (Munich): Orkhis, 1922. Hardcover. First edition; 6 1/2 x 9 1/4; pp. 144; cloth-backed illustrated paper over boards; a bit of discoloration and spotting to boards; pages with small moisture ripples to margins (not affecting text and illustrations); gift inscription to half-title page; good to very good condition. Title, preface, index, and subtitles in Russian and in German. An incredible accomplishment and a standard point of reference for big part of the 20th century, the book encompassed the portraits,facsimile letters, signatures, and artwork of 137 of Russia's most accomplished authors and poets of all times - from Lomonosov, through Pushkin and Gogol, to Tolstoy, Block, and Akhmatova. The portraits, some of them from engravings, others from paintings, and still others from photographs, were originally created by renowned artists such as Mir Isskustva members Iurii Annenkov and Konstantin Somov and graphic artist Sergei Chekhonin. The author, Alexander Eliasberg (1878-1924), was a Jewish-Russian historian, translator, and author who had immigrated to Munich in 1905. Among his works, the present one was arguably his masterpiece, also evidenced by novelist and Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann's enthusiastic praises in the latter's preface to the book. OCLC lists 4 institutional holdings with none other presently in the trade. Ill.: 0. 2.

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