HENRY GEORGE AND TOLSTOY

Izbrannyia rechi i stat’i … Perevod s Angliiskago S. D. Nikolaeva. [Collected lectures and essays … Translated from English by S. D. Nikolaev]. Moscow, ‘Posrednik’, 1905.

[Nikolaev]. Moscow, ‘Posrednik’, 1905.

8vo, pp. [4], 391, [1], with a portrait of the author; slightly browned, old stamp and inscription (excised) to title; a good copy in contemporary (original?) green buckram, worn, hinges cracked.

£500

Approximately:
US $630€583

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Izbrannyia rechi i stat’i … Perevod s Angliiskago S. D. Nikolaeva. [Collected lectures and essays … Translated from English by S. D. Nikolaev]. Moscow, ‘Posrednik’, 1905.

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First edition, very rare: Russian translations of 11 lectures and essays, published by the ‘Posrednik’ publishing house founded by Tolstoy, who was a vocal supporter of George and saw Russia as the natural home for his philosophy on the land question.

Tolstoy had first encountered George through Progress and Poverty in the 1890s and the powerful influence is visible in his diaries, correspondence, the testimony of his daughter, and the incorporation of George’s philosophy into the novel Resurrection. The translator Sergei Nikolaev (1861-1920) was a friend of Tolstoy and an equally committed Georgist, having translated Progress and Poverty in 1896; he made his library on the subject of land reform available to Tolstoy and his daughter.

The publication of the present collection, in a year of much social unrest in Russia, reignited Tolstoy’s interest – in April he recorded: ‘I very much want to write an exposition of my belief and also something about Henry George, whom I read in [Sergei D.] Nikolaev’s edition and was delighted by once again.’ In the event he was to write an introduction to Nikolaev’s translation of Social Problems (1906).

The lectures and essays translated here comprise: ‘The study of political economy’, ‘Moses’, ‘The crime of poverty’, ‘“Thou shalt not steal”’, ‘“Thy kingdom come”’, ‘Land for the people’, ‘Justice the object, taxation the means’, ‘The single tax – what is it and why we urge it’, ‘Causes of the business depression’ and ‘The condition of labour’. Also included is a long biographical essay mostly extracted from The Life of Henry George (1900), and a bibliography of works in Russian by or about George.

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