DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor Mikhailovich; DOBUZHINSKY, Mstislav Valerianovich (illustrator)

White Nights: A Sentimental Novel from the Memoirs of a Dreamer [Belye nochi: Sentimental'nyi roman]

Item #1663

Moscow – Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennoi Literatury [Goslitizdat], 1963. 81, [3] pp., illustrated throughout with full-page plates, in-text drawings, vignettes, and tailpieces by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. Original publisher's pictorial paper wrappers/dust jacket printed in black. Wrappers fresh with faint age-toning along the outer margins and spine fold, and minimal soft creasing to the extremities.

An attractive Soviet reissue reproducing Mstislav Dobuzhinsky's (1875–1957) celebrated cycle of illustrations, widely considered one of the highest achievements of twentieth-century Russian graphic design. Originally created in 1922–1923 for the legendary Akvilon edition, Dobuzhinsky's woodcut-style line drawings capture the haunting architectural atmosphere, stark shadows, and urban melancholy of St. Petersburg's canal embankments and bridges, perfectly mirroring Dostoevsky's 1848 sentimental narrative. A core member of the World of Art [Mir Iskusstva] movement, Dobuzhinsky seamlessly integrated typography, title vignettes, full-page compositions, and tailpieces into a unified visual environment. Printed at the historic "Pechatny Dvor" typography in Leningrad, this 1963 edition made Dobuzhinsky's Silver Age masterpiece accessible to a new generation of post-Stalin Soviet readers.

Price: $60.00