Rare books from M.B.Rare Books

First edition of Wilde's "Florentine Tragedy". First Russian translation.
Can a classic of world literature be published first in Russian and only then in English? For the first time, the "Florentine Tragedy" appeared on the shelves of Moscow stores in a Russian translation.
At the beginning of 20th century thanks to the efforts of symbolists Oscar Wilde became one of the symbols of the "new literature" on a par with Ibsen, Maeterlinck and Nietzsche. By 1906, Oscar Wilde had become one of the most widely read foreign authors in Russia. Of course, Robert Ross was very surprised when, in the same year, Wilde's bibliographer, Stuart Mason, introduced him to a young translator from Russia — Mikhail Likardopulo. He would have been even more surprised if he had learned the whole story of Licardopoulo's life — it was as mysterious and dramatic as the story of the author of the tragedy.
Michael was born in a Greek family in Naples, a city, which Oscar Wilde often visited in the last years of his life. He… 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

Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (1821 –1894) — a Russian mathematician considered to be the founding father of Russian mathematics. Chebyshev is known for his fundamental contributions to the fields of probability, statistics, mechanics, and number theory. A number of important mathematical concepts were named after him, including the Chebyshev inequality (which can be used to prove the weak law of large numbers), the Bertrand–Chebyshev theorem, Chebyshev polynomials, and Chebyshev bias. (Chebyshev is known for his work in the fields of probability, statistics, mechanics, and number theory.) Предлагаю последнее предложение убрать, так как оно дублирует одно из предыдущих.
Of Chebyshev's numerous discoveries, it is necessary to mention first of all the works on number theory. They began with Chebyshev's doctoral dissertation "The Theory of Comparisons", published in 1849; it became the first Russian monograph on number theory. In… Read More

Album of political cartoons with anti-capitalist and anti-Zionists images.
Author Aron Naumovich Gefter (1894–1963), a graphic artist, graduated of Vilno Art College, Higher Art and Technical College in Moscow, was a student of V. Favorsky and D. Kardovsky. Expressive caricatures of foreign politicians, Russian emigres, fascists; a significant part of the cartoons depicts Zionists, Jewish nationalists and other Jews. Text in Yiddish. Foreword by Moshe Litvakov (shot soon after).
With the inscription of the artist made in 1933.
Condition: Original embossed cloth binding. Stains on the covers. A small loss in the spine. Cracks in end papers.
Very rare book with attractive illustrations.

Edition and design of the cover by Stenbergs. Classic of book constructivism.
Stenbergs, brothers Vladimir Augustovich (1899-1982) and Georgy Augustovich (1900-1933) – Soviet artists of theater and cinema, posters and books, representatives of the Russian avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century, classics of film posters.
They were born in Moscow in the family of the Swedish artist A. Stenberg, who came to Russia in 1898 for decorative work at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. They studied at the Stroganov Art and Industrial School (1912-1917) and the State Free Art Workshops (1917-1920). Already in their student years, they joined constructivism, creating industrial models and non-objective "color structures" made of glass, metal and fishing line. They actively participated in the revolutionary agitprop, decorated mass celebrations. They made an outstanding contribution to the avant-garde scenography, working for the A. Ya. Tairov's Chamber Theater.
However, they went down in history primarily as… Read More

An album of original photographs of the stands of the exhibition was held in the Archive of the Red Army in Moscow in 1932. A total of 34 photographs 16.5x23.5 cm.
Original binding. No more than 10 copies of the album were released. Most likely, the only surviving copy. Extremely rare.

The first Russian publication of the 2nd volume of Marx's "Capital". Translated by economist, revolutionary and interpreter N.F. Danielson (1844–1918), this translation became the work of his life. This 2nd volume appeared in print in Russian in the same year as the first German publication (Friedrich Engels sent the pages of an unpublished book for translation to Danielson). Shortly after its release, the book was censored and banned.
Rare book.

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

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

Sergej Rakhmaninov. All-Night Vigil. First edition!
Rakhmaninov Sergei. Vsenoshchnoe bdenie dlja smeshannago chora. Op. 37. Moskva, Petrograd, Paris, London, New-York, Rossijskoe Muzykal'noe Izdatel'stvo, 1915 , 91 pages.
S.V. Rachmaninov wrote "All Night Vigil" during the First World War. The work was first performed on March 10, 1915 in the Great Hall of the Noble Assembly in Moscow (now the Column Hall of the House of Unions) by the Synodal Choir under the direction of N.M. Danilina. The composer dedicated his work to S.V. Smolensky - an outstanding church musician and choral figure.
Rachmaninov's "All-Night Vigil" belongs to the pinnacle of choral art. This music is still recognized to this day as the unsurpassed "crown of the Moscow school" of sacred music.
"All-Night Vigil" was based on ancient church chants, which existed in the practice of Orthodox worship in different versions: znamennij, Greek, Kiev, as well as the composer's own musical themes, stylistically unified with the ancient… Read More

[Complet set] Works of architectural and design workshops for 1934. Vol.1-2, Issues 1-7, 10-12.Moscow: Publishing house. Design Department of the Moscow City Executive Committee and the Moscow City Council R.K. and K.D., 1936. - V. 1. 23, [1] p. (explanatory text). No. 1. 78, [2] p., 3 l. ill. No. 2. 96, [4] p., 3 p. ill. No. 3. 87, [1] p., 1 p. ill. V. II. 53, [3] p. (pointers). No. 4. 66, [2] p., 1 l. ill. No. 5. 47, [1] p. No. 6. 46, [2] p., 2 p. ill. No. 7. 37, [1] p., 1 l. ill. No. 10, 78, [2] p., 2 p. ill. No. 11. 47, [1] p. No. 12. 22, [2] pp., 2 p. ill.; 30x23 cm.
Collections of works of architectural design workshops formed in 1933 under the Moscow City Council, with diagrams and drawings of metropolitan architecture - metro stations, architectural ensembles (development of Moscow embankments, layout of the Central Park of Culture and Culture, Town of the Academy of Sciences, Lenin School, etc.), Stalinist buildings of Moscow etc. The first volume includes the works of the first three… Read More

Children's own stories and drawings / collected by A. Kruchenykh. EUY, 1914. 48 p.: 15 illustrations. 33,5 × 18,3 cm. In publisher's wrappers. Uncut block, leaves of different sizes. Small tears in covers, pages are clean. Good condition of the copy.
The collection consists of two parts: the lithographed drawings and the text.The latter is printed on heavy green paper and is entitled "Poems, Stories, Fairy Tales". The two largest texts, by Zina V. (age 11) and Tanya (age 7), are subtitled "Recorded from Dictation" and "Recorded from Memory".Lithographs in pencil on thin, light pink paper are printed on one side of the sheets: 15 drawings and 1 sheet of lithographed text (16 lithographs in total). All drawings (except one) are perpendicular to the binding. Drawn by: N. Kulbina, M. Ehrlich and P. Bakharev.Alexei Kruchenykh is one of the key figures of Russian literature, the "enfant terrible" of Russian Futurism, the "Futurist Jesuit of the word", and perhaps the most consistent figure of the Russian… Read More