[Maxim Gorki] Contemporary, apparently unpublished typescript translation of 'The Battle of the Waves for Freedom' by Maxim Gorky [Gorki]. Headed 'Forbidden in Russia'. Made on behalf of Mrs Gill's Translating Office, Ludgate Hill, London.

Maxim Gorky [L. A. Shiffner, translator, of Mrs R. V. Gill's Translating Office, Ludgate Circus, London]

Published by Circa With stamp of 'Mrs. Gill Translating Office Ludgate Hill London EC.', 1910

About this Item

The story on nine numbered 4to pages, with a covering page carrying the title: 'THE BATTLE OF THE WAVES FOR FREEDOM. | By Maxim Gorki.' On the rectos of ten 4to leaves, attached by a brass pin. Text clear and complete at 26 lines to the page. On worn, discoloured paper (watermarked 'CONQUEROR | LONDON'), with loss to extremities. Mrs Gill's purple oblong stamp in bottom left-hand corner of reverse of last leaf: 'Mrs. GILL, | ATING OFFICE, | GATE HILL, | ON EC.' A political parable, with the narrator, in a 'little sailing boat', told by 'an old weather-beaten tar' how 'the sea does not allow itself to be tied and bound'. First paragraph begins: 'A brilliant sun and a warm air. The sea was sinking into a calm, though, every now and then, it rose again in slow majestic waves.' Certainly dating from before 1915, by which time Mrs Gill's Typing Office had moved from Ludgate Hill to Paternoster Row, and probably dating from the period of Gorky's first foreign exile, 1906 to 1913. Mrs L. A. Shiffner was active as a translator from Russian in 1904; Mrs Alice Gill did work for Gissing (see his Collected Letters). I have yet to trace a published version of this story.

Seller Inventory # 10291

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [Maxim Gorki] Contemporary, apparently unpublished typescript translation of 'The Battle of the Waves for Freedom' by Maxim Gorky [Gorki]. Headed 'Forbidden in Russia'. Made on behalf of Mrs Gill's Translating Office, Ludgate Hill, London.
• Publisher: Circa With stamp of 'Mrs. Gill Translating Office Ludgate Hill London EC.'
• Publication Date: 1910