Title: Six Lyrics from the Ruthenian of Taras Shevchenko Also the Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov from the Russian of Mikhail Lermontov. Rendered Into English Verse with a Biographical Sketch by E.L. Voynich.
Description: London: Elkin Mathews, Vigo Street, 1911. 1911. - Small quarto, 6-1/2 inches high by 5 inches wide. Softcover, bound in printed gray wrappers, with the publisher's "Vigo Cabinet Series" device on the front cover and the attractive publisher's device designed by Frederick York Powell with its motto "Fructus Inter Folia" on the rear cover. The catalog of the first 96 titles in the series is printed on the inside of the wrappers & continued on the rear cover. The edges of the soiled covers and head & tail of the spine are chipped with splits along the top & bottom of the front joint. There is a light stamp of the Poetry Review on the front cover, stating "Pay to the order of Charles River Trust Company, Cambridge, Mass. Poetry Review". 64 deckle-edged pages, including an 18 page biography of Shevchenko by E.L. Voynich. Very good.
RARE FIRST EDITION. Printed at the Chiswick Press.
From the library of American poet and anthologist Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien (1890-1941), signed by him on the front cover. O'Brien edited "Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood" with Padraic Colum (1916) and the significant "The Masque of Poets: A Collection of New Poems by Contemporary American Poets" (1918).
The translator and biographer Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864-1960) was an Irish-born novelist, author of "The Gadfly". She founded the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom and was active in pro-revolutionary activities. In 1920 Voynich emigrated to the US with her antiquarian bookseller husband. In a Preface to the book she writes: "I am so sensible of this that, had Shevchenko written in a language as accessible to most English readers as French or German, this volume would perhaps not have been published. But if a man leave immortal lyrics hidden away from Western Europe in a minor Slavonic idiom between Russian, Servian and Polish, it seems hard that he should go untranslated while waiting for the perfect rendering which may never come. Inadequate as are these few specimens, they show some dim shadow of the mind of a poet who has done for the Dnieper country what Burns did for Scotland."
The Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861) was a champion of Ukrainian independence and he was punished and suffered for his idealism. There are monuments and memorials to him throughout Ukraine. The poems included in this volume are: "Lyric: From day to day, from night to night", "Lyric: Only friend, clear evening twilight", "Lyric: The Reaper", "Lyric: Dig my grave and raise my barrow", "Lyric: I care not, shall I see my dear", "Lyric: Winter".
The short-lived Russian romantic writer Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) was inspired by and deeply influenced by Lord Byron. As a poet he was second only to Pushkin in his celebrity. His folk epic "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov" was written in 1837. Its most famous scene describes a fist-fight between the protagonists, Kalashnikov and Kiribeevich. During the fight, the merchant Kalashnikov kills Kiribeevich resulting in his execution. "And thus Stepan Kalasnnikov died / By the death of fear, by the death of shame, / And under the axe hif luckless head / Rolled down and fell from the bloodstained block. Very good .
Keywords: SLITERATURE; IX LYRICS FROM THE RUTHENIAN OF TARAS SHEVCHENKO; THE SONG OF THE MERCHANT KALASHNIKOV FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MIKHAIL LERMONTOV; ETHEL LILIAN VOYNICH; RUSSIAN LITERATURE; UKRAINIAN LITERATURE; TARAS SHEVCHENKO; MIKHAIL LERMONTOV; RUTHENIAN; TRAN
- Book number: 98335
See more books from our catalog: Literature