TOLSTOY, Lev Nikolaevich.
Posmertnyia khudozhestvennyia proizvedeniia… pod redaktsii V Chertkova. Tom I [-III] [Posthumous artistic literary works… Edited by V. Chertkov. Volume I [-III]].
[Moscow], A.L. Tolstoy, [1912].
Three vols, 4to, pp. 238, [2]; 253, [3]; 213, [3]; with 4 black-and-white photographic plates; some light staining, a few leaves loose in binding, but generally a sound copy in Russian contemporary quarter cloth, gilt lettering to spine, worn; with Library of Congress duplicate stamps.
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Posmertnyia khudozhestvennyia proizvedeniia… pod redaktsii V Chertkova. Tom I [-III] [Posthumous artistic literary works… Edited by V. Chertkov. Volume I [-III]].
A reprint, in slightly smaller format than the first edition of 1911, of Tolstoy’s posthumous works, which included the first appearance of many important pieces: ‘Hadji Murad, as well as The Memoirs of a Madman and The Devil, was published only in 1911, in the collected edition of Tolstoy’s posthumous works.
This collection also includes several plays and many other stories and fragments. One of these is Father Sergius (1890-8), the story of an aristocrat who became a monk and a hermit - a powerful study of spiritual pride and, once again, carnal desires. It is also an excellent example of Tolstoy’s later rapid and “essential” narrative manner. Still better in this respect is The False Coupon (1903-5), the admirably constructed story of a succession of evils diverging from one initial evil action to converge by a contrasting succession of good actions towards the common salvation of all concerned. It is impossible to list all the numerous minor stories and fragments of these wonderful three volumes’ (Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature, p. 308).
See Kilgour 1205 for the first edition.
