CHARSKAYA, Lidiya Alekseyevna

[SIGNED COPY] Tales of the Blue Fairy [Skazki Goluboi Fei]

Item #1649

Illustrated by V. Melnikov, Z. Shapiro, A. Balzer, S. Forbes, A. Dikova, L. Dorman, and S. Stiffen; cover design by A. Loman. Berlin: Izdatel'stvo A. S. Saks [A. S. Saks Publishing House], [c. 1922]. First émigré edition. 168, [2] pp. + full-page plates (including frontispiece). Original publisher's beige paper-covered boards with red Art Nouveau lettering and central floral medallion by A. Loman, red cloth spine.

A charming early 1920s émigré printing of the celebrated children's fairy-tale collection by Lidiya Alekseyevna Charskaya (née Churilova, 1875–1937), one of the most widely read juvenile authors of late Imperial Russia. Originally published in St. Petersburg in 1912, Tales of the Blue Fairy gathers seventeen romantic, moral, and mystical stories—including "Tsarevna Ldinka," "Charodei-golod," "Dul'-Dul', korol' bez serdtsa," and "Mech korolevy"—weaving themes of compassion, self-sacrifice, and nature's wonder. Following the 1917 Revolution, Charskaya's sentimental works were condemned by Soviet authorities as bourgeois and systematically purged from state libraries, making foreign émigré editions essential for Russian diaspora families raising children abroad. Issued in Berlin by Alexander Saks's Russian exile press, the volume is embellished in the Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) aesthetic, featuring a cover design by A. Loman, elegant fairy vignettes and headpieces by A. Balzer, and full-page monochrome plates by V. Melnikov and Z. Shapiro.

Price: $250.00