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Quarto, 669 pages. In Near Fine Condition with Very Good condition slip case. Spine is navy leather with embossed gilt lettering. Slip case has mild general soiling and scuffing, with a small dent along the front joint of the closed end and mild bumping to the corners. Hand marbled boards. Gilt text block edges. Contains stitched in ribbon bookmark. Signed flat by Nicholas Pasternak Slater [Translator] on publisher's limitation page, limited edition #451/750. JW Consignment. Shelved in hallway. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was born in 1890, Moscow to a Jewish family of artists. His father, Leonid Pasternak was a post-Impressionist painter and instructor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Boris's mother, concert pianist Rosa Kaufman (daughter of Ukrainian industrialist Isadore Kaufman), married Leonid a year before Boris Pasternak's birth. Together, Leonid and Rosa Pasternak fostered their son's early aptitude for the arts. Leonid illustrated the novels of Russian author Leo Tolstoy (for which he was awarded a medal at the 1900 World Fair in Paris), which resulted in Tolstoy becoming a close family friend and influence on young Boris. Other regular visitors to the Pasternak home included poet Rainer Maria Rilke, composers Sergei Rachmanioff and Alexander Scriabin, and existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov. Boris studied to be a pianist at the Moscow Conservatory for a short time before pursuing philosophy at the University of Marburg in Germany. During WWI, he joined the Russian Futurist movement as a pianist. He began publishing poems in LIRIKA, the group Centrifuge's literary journal. LIRIKA led Boris into the politics of poetry and artistic movements. When he emerged in 1917 after a failed love affair, he released MY SISTER, LIFE, his first major book blending the lines of poetry and philosophy. Boris Pasternak remained in Russia throughout WWI, working and teaching at a chemical factory which later influenced his seminal work, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Contrary to many of his contemporaries, he remained beyond the October Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War (1918-1920). MY SISTER, LIFE was officially published in 1922, changing the face of Russian poetry and inspiring communication between Rilke, Tsvetayeva, and Pasternak. Due to fears of Soviet censorship, Pasternak moved to a focus on translation. His translation of Goethe's Faust, however, still aroused Soviet criticism from the literary journal Novy Mir for Pasternak's "progressive" interpretation. After decades of work, Pasternak released DOCTOR ZHIVAGO in 1955. He submitted it to Novy Mir who immediately denied the novel publication, citing its rejection of socialist realism and its emphasis of individual welfare over that of society. Yet, upon learning of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO in 1956, Italian Communist Party journalist Sergio D'angelo connected Pasternak to Milan communist publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who was interested in publishing Soviet literature that could appeal to Western audiences. Despite Soviet protest, Feltrinelli published DOCTOR ZHIVAGO in 1957 to instant success in the non-communist world. It has since been translated into 18 different languages, with the 1958 U.S. translation having remained on the New York Times' Best Seller List for 26 weeks between 1958 and 1959. In 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to Russian lyric poetry and literature. Soviet forces issued him an ultimatum: decline the award or be barred from his homeland until death. In the end, Pasternak chose Russia. He continued to write poetry until he died in his home in 1960. Mourners of Pasternak risked KGB surveillance to attend his funeral services. The Soviet campaign against Pasternak waged until DOCTOR ZHIVAGO's official publication under Gorbachev and acceptance by Novy Mir in 1987. At its core, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO is autobiographical fiction, a testament to Pasternak's experience enduring the hardships of the Russia. Seller Inventory # 1387813
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Bibliographic Details
Title: DOCTOR ZHIVAGO [Signed]
Publisher: The Folio Society, London, UK
Publication Date: 2019
Binding: Hardcover
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: Limited UK Edition #451/750.
