OLESHA, Iurii Karlovich.
Zapiski pisatelia [Notes of a writer].
Moscow, [“Ogonek” for] Journalists Union, 1931.
12mo, pp. 35, [1]; a little browned; pp. 13-14 shaved by the binder, with some loss; in full cloth, original printed wrappers (trimmed and reinforced with tape) bound in; private ownership stamp to front wrapper, title, and final page.
Apparent first edition of Olesha’s autobiographical sketch.
Olesha (1899–1960) is best known for the short novel Zavist’ (Envy, 1927), which was fêted by both Soviet and émigré critics and established the young writer’s reputation almost overnight. ‘A writer of great distinction, … as subtle – and sometimes as elusive – as the best representatives of that Western psychological school with which he had so many affinities, … Olesha wrote comparatively little …, and when the volume of his collected works was published in 1934, it contained all his fiction. Yet his one novel and the several short stories and plays are a more remarkable and lasting phenomenon of modern Russian literature than the many bulky tomes of more fortunate and more popular Soviet writers’ (Slonim, Soviet Russian Literature, p. 124f).
Not in OCLC.
