Rare books from M.B.Rare Books

A scandalous story of love between an abbot and a 14-year-old novice, which ends in a collective suicide on the altar. In this edition (the only Russian one), it is attributed to Oscar Wilde. It was actually written by Wilde's "friend" John Fr. Bloksem (1873-1928) and published in the only issue of the journal "Chameleon" published by him (1894). Written under the influence of Wilde and with his approval, the story ("The Priest and the Acolyte") was discussed in the same year at his trial. An anonymous translator attributed this text to Wilde in the preface and gave the whole book as a title the nickname of Wilde himself — "The King of Life". The book was banned in England, Russia, and even in Soviet times, in the 1940s and 50s (see Glavlit lists in: Blum A. Index Librorum Prohibitorum of Foreign Writers), and both Glavlit, Blum, and the catalogers of the RSL and RNB mistakenly indicate Wilde as the author of this book. Printed in the ephemeral publishing house "Icarus", in the font "antique".
A… Read More

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) is one of the most famous and widely read German writers of the twentieth century. "All Quiet on the Western Front" is his first and most famous novel. The novel began to be published on November 8, 1928 in a Berlin newspaper, and the first separate edition was published on January 29, 1929. However, there is a little-known Russian edition of Remarque, which was published before the original edition was printed! The publisher of the proposed book is the infamous Zakhar Leontievich Kagansky, the former publisher of the magazine "Russia", who left the USSR and took with him a contract with Bulgakov for the publication of "The White Guard" and some of the writer's manuscripts. Taking advantage of the absence of legal norms on international copyright in the USSR, he published books without the permission of the authors, mainly M. Bulgakov (in a Theatrical novel, he was brought out under the name of Rvatsky).
In the case of Remarque's novel, Z. Kagansky managed to translate… Read More

The first translation of Joyce into Russian language. This edition consists of stories by English writers and includes translation of " Counterparts", a story from "Dubliners".
Joyce's long and difficult journey to the Russian reader began with this publication. As for the translation of "Dubliners" into Russian, here Joyce's collection of short stories was waiting for a difficult fate. After first publication in a small supplement of the magazine "Red Niva", the first separate edition of "Dubliners" appeared in 1927. Translated from English and foreword by E. N. Fedotova. Cover by George Fitingof. In the mid-30s, the First Translation Association under the leadership of Ivan Kashkin began working on Joyce's collection "Dubliners". The collection was published in 1937 without specifying the names of the translators. The author of the afterword was forced to hide under a pseudonym. The names of the translators became known only in 1982, 45 years after the first publication, when a new edition of… Read More

First edition of Bohr's doctoral dissertation. It is possible, by the nature of the handwriting, that the inscription on the title is of the author himself, Niels Bohr. The inscription - the name of an unidentified person, with the date - May 1911, it was at this time that Bor defended his dissertation.
his is a purely theoretical work that clearly exhibited the mastery Bohr had over his chosen topic, the electron theory of metals. Bohr's doctoral dissertation was the first step to his epoch-making quantum theory of atomic spectra of 1913. Bohr won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922 for his development of the classical quantum theory of atomic structure.
Good condition. Original printed covers upon binding`s covers. A lovely, well-preserved copy.

Nikolai Troshin (1897-1990). The artist was born in Tula. His professional studies began at the Penza Art School, which was later transformed into a department of VKhUTEMAS. In 1918, twenty-five works of Troshin were first exhibited at the Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and the Art Industry in Ryazan (among the participants were Baksheev, Gerasimov, Vasnetsov, Pasternak and other masters). He continued his art education in Moscow, in the capital VKhUTEMAS, in the workshop of Ilya Mashkov. He began to make posters for the Transreklama enterprise, together with his wife he designed a series of children's books - "How Cotton Became Calico", "Bakery No. 3", "From Rubber to Galoshes" and others. He was attracted to photography, he wrote a lot for the magazine "Soviet Photo", even published a book "Fundamentals of composition in Photography" (1929). From 1930 to the beginning of the Patriotic War, he designed more than 40 issues of the magazine "USSR at the Construction Site", in 1937 the publication… Read More

Russian constructivist advertising booklet with photomontage cover. There is an autograph on the title, which by the nature of the handwriting can be identified as belonging to the famous director Sergei Eisenstein, who wrote the afterword to the book.
First edition of the book. The author is a film critic Naum Osipovich Kaufman. In the form of an afterword on 20 pages, the article by Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948) "Behind the Scenes" is published. Contents: Preface — "The Spectator" (Ginza Street. Jin Tan. Asakusa. Cinema "Denki-Kan") — Plot (Historical films "Jidai-Geki". Adventurous films "Chambara". Modern films "Gendai-Geki") — Production ("Nikkatsu" and "Sociku") — Eisenstein. Behind the scenes. — Index of drawings: 20 illustrations, including 16 full-page and 4 in the text in Eisenstein's article. Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898 Riga- 1948 Moscow) was a Soviet theater and film director, artist, screenwriter, art theorist, and teacher. Author of fundamental works on… Read More

Publishing cover and title page of the work of D. I. Mitrokhin. The situation of war always needs a simplified image of reality for propaganda purposes. This book is the first study on military prints, as a separate genre of "Russian folk pictures" during the First World War. The illustrations placed in this book are created in the XVIII - early XX centuries and present the history of lithographed military historical prints.
Good condition. Missing corner (5x10 cm) of avantitle, otherwise good.

Early Soviet fascination with Western industrialization is captured in the unattributed Constructivist wrapper design of this text about the German industrialist and politician Hugo Stinnes (1870-1924), the wealthiest man in Germany at the time. A portrait of Stinnes, "a steel baron" who made his fortune during WWI, is composed of a striking photomontage of steel mills, machine parts, and rail tracks by actor and graphic artist Petr Galadzhev (1900-1971).
Piotr Galadzhev - painter, graphic artist, scene-designer, actor. He studied at the Central Stroganov School of Industrial Art — the First State Art Workshops — the Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS, 1909–1920), at the faculty of graphic art under the guidance of V. A. Favorsky and D. A. Shcherbinovsky. At the same time Galadzhev studied acting technique in the studio of the Union of workers' organizations for art and public education, under the guidance of F. F. Komissarzhevsky and in the studio of L. V. Kuleshov in the… Read More

Manifesto of the avant-garde artist Alexander Vasilyevich Shevchenko (1883-1948).Rare and important Russian Art essay. A. Shevchenko was a highly influential painter and art theorist whose book coined the term "Neo-Primitism." He defined it as a new form of art that blended Cézanne, Cubism and Futurism with traditional Russian folk art such as the icon and the lubok or popular picture sheet. He was a Russian and Soviet painter and graphic artist, art theorist, avant-garde artist. Shevchenko was educated (1899-1909) at the Stroganov School (especially highlighting this school for professionalism), at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (on the course of K. A. Korovin) and in Paris — at the Academy of R. Julian and in the workshop of E. Carrier. In the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture he became close to M. F. Larionov and, inspired by his theories (luchism — partly, neo-primitivism — seriously), he participated in the exhibitions "Donkey's Tail",… Read More

Very rare first Russian edition of super popular revolutionary-romantic novel by the writer Ethel Voynich (1864-1960). This is one of the curious cases – "Gadfly" was known in USA and Europe, but the widest popularity this novel had in Russia-USSR. Millions of copies were printed, films, performances were created, the image of the main hero firmly took one of the important places in Soviet mythology.
The translation of the novel "The Gadfly" first appeared as an appendix to the magazine "Peace of God" for 1898 (what the oddity - one of the main revolutionary novels appears in an Orthodox magazine) . The separate edition was in the same year. It was distributed by G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, E. D. Stasova, Grigory Petrovsky, I. V. Babushkin, J. M. Sverdlov, M. Gorky. The "Gadfly" was very important was Soveit leaders - Kotovsky, N. A. Ostrovsky, A. P. Gaidar, M. I. Kalinin, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The Gadfly was Yuri Gagarin's favorite book!
Contemporary binding , worn binding, loss of spine skin fragments,… Read More

Konstantin Mikhailovich Miklashevsky (1885-1943) was a Russian aristocrat, a brilliant polymath, a talented actor, director, and theater historian. At the beginning of the last century, he traveled all over Europe, looking for materials about commedia dell'arte in archives and museums. In fact, it was he who first described in detail, discovered this unique theatrical phenomenon to the world in his book "La Commedia Dell'arte or the Theater of Italian Comedians of the XVI-XVII Centuries." The first part of it was published in Russia in 1914, and the full version was published in Paris in 1927 in French. Excellent preservation, in a colorful cover. Numerous illustrations. On a separate sheet-pasted the printing address of the publishing house: "November 12, 1917, Petrograd. Printing of the book was suspended in 1914 due to the author's conscription into the army. Now the work is finished, but due to the typographical crisis and the temporary closure of the Sirius printing house, we are forced to… Read More

Saint Innocent of Alaska (1797 – 1879), also known as Saint Innocent Metropolitan of Moscow (Russian: Святитель Иннокентий Митрополит Московский) was a Russian Orthodox missionary priest, then the first Orthodox bishop and archbishop in the Americas, and finally the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia. Remembered for his missionary work, scholarship, and leadership in Alaska and the Russian Far East during the 19th century, he is known for his abilities as a scholar, linguist, and administrator, as well as his great zeal for his work.
In these territories he learned several languages and dialects of the indigenous peoples. He wrote many of the earliest scholarly works about the native peoples of Alaska, including dictionaries and grammars for their languages for which he devised writing systems; also, he wrote religious works in, and translated parts of the Bible into, several of these languages.
At the beginning of 1823, Bishop Michael of Irkutsk received… Read More

In the publisher's illustrated, futuristic cover, glassgraphed edition.The upper part of the cover with fragmentary losses has been preserved, trimmed. Traces of scotch tape on the cover and the sheet with the table of contents. Minor contamination. The corner of the sheet with the table of contents is lost. On the back of the upper part of the cover is the autograph of G. Zimin: "[not sorted] G. Zimin VI 25 year" On the top of the cover on the back is a stamped ex-libris: "From the books of Viktor Strazhev". The circulation is 100 copies . Copy No. 28.
An album of 10 sheets of original drawings by Grigory Alexandrovich Zimin (1901-1985), printed on a steklograph.
Grigory Aleksandrovich Zimin (1901-1985) - artist, graphic artist and photographer, cubo-futurist, constructivist from entourage of A. Rodchenko.
Provenance: from the books of Viktor Ivanovich Strazhev (1879-1950) - bibliographer, poet, literary critic, teacher.
Very rare. Worldcat shows only one copy in Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The first translation of Sigmund Freud into Russian. The first translation of one of Freud's main works "The Interpretation of Dreams" (Die Traumdeutung, The Interpretation of Dreams) in the world ! .
In Russia, the reception of Freud's works began quite early, immigrants from Russia were among the first students and patients of Freud. Max Eitingon was a native of Mogilev (modern Belarus), one of the first and most devoted students of Freud, the founder of a number of psychoanalytic societies, publishing houses, libraries and institutes, was one of the largest sponsors and talented managers of the psychoanalytic movement, who offered the PA community the educational model that still underlies analytical training today, one of the Presidents of the International Psychoanalytic Association (1925-1934), as well as one of the founders of the Palestinian PA Society, where he moved from Germany after the fascists came to power. Lou Andreas-Salome was a native of St. Petersburg, who had a significant impact… Read More

David Kakabadze. Art and Space. In Georgian. The circulation is 510 copies. Paris 1926. 32 p. + 8 l. Cardboard binding, dust jacket 25.5x20.5 cm
David Nestorovich Kakabadze (1889-1952) was a Georgian artist, art theorist and historian, inventor. In 1914, together with P.N. Filonov, he created the group "Intimate Workshop of Painters and Draughtsmen", which released the manifesto "Made Paintings", where the principles of avant-garde "analytical art" were first proclaimed. In 1919-1927 he lived in Paris. He became one of the inventors of stereo cinema, having designed and patented a cinema camera that gives the illusion of a relief image. He outlined his theories in books. Illustrations on coated paper.
The condition of the block is very good, the sheets are not cut, the spine is lost.