Beschreibung:

TOLSTOY, Leo (1828-1910). Detstvo i otrochestvo. [Childhood and Boyhood.] St Petersburg: Eduard Prats, 1856. The rare first edition of Tolstoy's second book, published in the same year as his first. RBH and ABPC record just three copies having sold at auction in over 35 years, two of which as part of renowned collections (Fekula and Eden Martin, both sold at Christie’s). Tolstoy’s short stories earned him considerable fame, and overt approval and praise from established writers such as Ivan Turgenev, years before War and Peace and Anna Karenina . Detstvo i otrochestvo is sometimes incorrectly catalogued as Tolstoy's first book; the two individual parts, Childhood and Boyhood, were completed first (in 1852 and 1854), but Voennye razskazy passed the censor two weeks earlier (on 11 May 1856). Kilgour 1192; Fekula 5324; not in Smirnov-Sokol’skii, Moia biblioteka. Octavo (182 x 110mm). (Lacking 1 p. of index, somewhat spotted and dampstained, minor toning, occasional thumb or ink marks.) 19th-century Russian half calf, marbled boards, spine tooled in blind and lettered (new endleaves, hinges and corners rubbed).