"Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg, published by Heritage Press, New York, 1941.

Hard boards, red cloth with gilt decoration on front board and titles on spine; 6 1/4" x 9 1/2"; 235 pages including plates, c.15 full-page plates [b/w wood engravings]; fine condition.

Arkady Kirsanov has just graduated from the University of Petersburg. He returns with a friend, Bazarov, to his father's modest estate in an outlying province of Russia. His father, Nikolay, gladly receives the two young men at his estate, called Marino, but Nikolay's brother, Pavel, soon becomes upset by the strange new philosophy called "nihilism" which the young men, especially Bazarov, advocate.Nikolay, initially delighted to have his son return home, slowly begins to feel uneasy. A certain awkwardness develops in his regard toward his son, as Arkady's radical views, much influenced by Bazarov, make Nikolay's own beliefs feel dated. Nikolay has always tried to stay as current as possible, by doing things such as visiting his son at school so the two can stay as close as they are, but this in Nikolay's eyes has failed....

The novel 'Fathers and Sons' [In original Russian titled 'Fathers and Children'] was first published in Moscow in 1862. It is one of the most acclaimed Russian novels of the 19th century. The novel refers to the growing divide between the two generations of Russians, and the character Yevgeny Bazarov, a nihilist who rejects the established ethics and order.

Turgenev wrote Fathers and Sons as a response to the growing cultural schism that he saw between liberals of the 1830s/1840s and the growing nihilist movement. Both the nihilists (the "children") and the 1830s liberals (the "fathers") sought Western-based social change in Russia. Additionally, these two modes of thought were contrasted with the Slavophiles, who believed that Russia's path lay in its traditional spirituality.

Fathers and Sons might be regarded as the first wholly modern novel in Russian literature (Gogol's Dead Souls, another main contender). The novel introduces a dual character study, as seen with the gradual breakdown of Bazarov's and Arkady's nihilistic opposition to emotional display, especially in the case of Bazarov's love for Madame Odintsova.

This novel is also the first Russian work to gain prominence in the Western world, eventually gaining the approval of well established novelists Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, and Henry James.

Fritz Eichenberg (Cologne, Germany 1901-1990, Peace Dale, Rhode Island) was a German-American illustrator and art educator who worked primarily in wood engraving.

He worked as a printer's apprentice, and studied at the Municipal School of Applied Arts in Cologne and the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, where he studied under Hugo Steiner-Prag. In 1923, he moved to Berlin to begin his career as an artist, producing illustrations for books and newspapers. In 1933, Eichenberg emigrated with his wife and children to the United States, where he settled in New York City for most of the remainder of his life. He taught art at the New School for Social Research and at Pratt Institute and was part of the WPA's Federal Arts Project. Eichenberg also served as the head of the art department at the University of Rhode Island and laid out the printmaking studios there.

In his prolific career as a book illustrator, Eichenberg worked with many forms of literature but specialized in material with elements of extreme spiritual and emotional conflict, fantasy, or social satire, illustrating such authors as include Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Poe, Swift, and Grimmelshausen. He also wrote and illustrated books of folklore and children's stories. Eichenberg was a long-time contributor to 'The Nation', his illustrations appearing in that magazine at various times between 1930 and 1980.

In 1947, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1949. Eichenberg was a former director of Graphic Arts Center in Brooklyn and was on the faculty of Pratt Institute and later a former head of the art department at University of Rhode Island.

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