Lot 113A email save

PASTERNAK, Boris Leonidovich (1890-1960). Temy i

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Berlin: "Gelikon," 1923. 126 pp. Small square 8vo (155 x 120 mm). Original purple wrappers with cover label. Condition: backstrip faded with small split at head; unobtrusive library stamps, small tape repair to verso of front wrapper. first edition of one of the nobel prize winner's important books of poetry. Originally written in 1917 with Sestra moya zhizn [My Sister-Life], Temy i varyatsii had to wait publication for several years due to the interruption of the Bolshevik Revolution. Sestra moya zhizn appeared first and cemented Pasternak's reputation as one of Russia's great modern poets. Temy i varyatsii also contained poems written during the interim. "In Themes and Variations Pasternak reaches the pinnacle of his technical virtuosity, equaled only by the most dazzling lines in My Sister-Life" (Rudova p. 36). The two books were published in one volume in 1929. [With:] Okhrannaya gramota [Safe Conduct]. Leningrad: Izdatelsvo pisatelei, [1931]. 128 pp. 4to (175 x 130 mm). Original cloth-backed boards. Condition: hinges starting, minor rubbing to covers and board extremities, leaf edges tanned. One of 6200 copies. This autobiography confused many readers and was not popular with the Soviet authorities when it was first published because it abandoned conventional chronology to explore the important people and events that helped shape the poet's artistic personality. (2)

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