Beschreibung:

Kontrapunkt [Counterpoint]. Paris: Rifma, 1951. Small 8vo. 47 pp. Original wrappers hand-colored by the author. Uncut, and unopened. PRESENTATION COPY not only with hand-painted wrappers but also a lengthy inscription in Russian verse on the front free endpaper: "Dining vis-a-vis (Champaigne, the piles of roses) Neither music nor love I no longer take seriously The star is burning in the desert The camels, the gifts, the tsars Sing my guitar, talk About the timeless happiness Till smoky Parisian dawn Irina Odoevtseva Paris May 1951." Poet, novelist and memoirist, Irina Odoevtseva was the favorite student of poet Nikolai Gumilov. Technically an Acmeist, she developed her own distinct style and was highly experimental as a writer. She and her husband Georgii Ivanov left Russia in 1922 and were at the center of Russian émigré society in Paris. In later years, when they were both struggling to live, they sometimes hand-painted collections of their verse to make them more desirable to collectors. Consequently each copy is a different and unique work of art. Odoevtseva finally returned to Leningrad in 1987 to great fanfare and her memoirs became a bestseller.