Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh [Collected Works in Four Volumes: The Twelve Chairs, The Little Golden Calf, Stories and Humorous Sketches, One-storied America]
Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel, 1938-1939. Rotov, K. (illustrator). Lifetime edition. Original illustrated calico bindings. Very good condition. Item #309
Octavo (20 x 14 cm). Text in Russian. Vol. 1: The Twelve Chairs. 1938, 315, [5] pp.; 8 illustrations/portraits. Vol. 2: The Little Golden Calf. 1938, 328, [4] pp.; 7 illustrations. Vol. 3: Stories and Humorous Sketches. 1939, 445, [3] pp. Vol. 4: One-storied America. 1939, 386, [6] pp. Errata slips in volumes 2-4, and in volumes 1-3 the ownership inscription of Jules Bernard, Yale-trained linguist, OSS officer, political officer with the US Mission in Berlin, 1953-56; all four from his estate. Good condition with slight wear and stains on bindings, foxing on separate pages; probably the best copies seen on the market in a long time.
The first-lifetime edition of the collected works of well-known Soviet satirical writers Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Feinsilberg) and Yevgeny Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Katayev). They did much of their writing together and are almost always referred to as "Ilf and Petrov." They were natives of Odesa. They were arguably the most famous satirical writers of the Soviet era. Ilf and Petrov were representatives of the "Odesa School" of humorist writers and some very prominent, predominantly Jewish cultural figures, along with Isaac Babel and Leonid Utesov, who moved to work in the Soviet capital after the abolishment of restrictions on Jewish residence in the Pale of Settlement.
Price: $2,500.00