Conversations with Goethe
[GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von.] ECKERMANN, Johann Peter; Dmitry Vasilievich AVERKIEV, translator.
Разговоры Гете, собранные Эккерманномъ, переводъ съ иѣмецкаго Д. В. Аверкиева, часть первая [– вторая] [Razgovory Gete, sobrannye Ekkermannom, perevod s nemetskago D[mitriia] V[asil’evicha] Averkieva, chast’ pervaia [– vtoraia]; ‘Conversations with Goethe, collected by Eckermann, translated from the German by D[mitry] V[asilievich] Averkiev, first [– second] part’]. St Petersburg, A. S. Suvorin, 1891.
Two vols, 8vo, pp. I: xix, [1], 358, [12 (advertisements)], II: [2], 416, xxvi, [16 (advertisements)]; slightly browned, titles a little spotted, a couple of short marginal tears, but generally a very good copy; in the original light grey-blue publisher’s cloth over bevelled boards, blocked in black and lettered gilt; rubbed, with some light soiling and abrasion; part-printed prize label of Elizaveta Nikolaevna Popova of the Tambovskii Aleksandrinskii Institut for girls, dated 1892, to front free endpaper of vol.'I.
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Разговоры Гете, собранные Эккерманномъ, переводъ съ иѣмецкаго Д. В. Аверкиева, часть первая [– вторая] [Razgovory Gete, sobrannye Ekkermannom, perevod s nemetskago D[mitriia] V[asil’evicha] Averkieva, chast’ pervaia [– vtoraia]; ‘Conversations with Goethe, collected by Eckermann, translated from the German by D[mitry] V[asilievich] Averkiev, first [– second] part’].
First edition in Russian, very rare, of Eckermann’s famous Gespräche mit Goethe (1836-48). A professor of English and German at the University of Jena and later librarian at Weimar, Eckermann was Goethe’s companion and unpaid secretary from 1823 until Goethe’s death in 1832, and he actively assisted in the preparation of the definitive edition of his works, the Ausgabe letzter Hand. His Gespräche record conversations with Goethe over the last nine years of his life, documenting the poet’s thoughts about drama, poetry, music, painting, philosophy, prominent figures of the day, and much else. Nietzsche famously described the Gespräche mit Goethe as ‘Das beste deutsche Buch, das es gibt’.
OCLC finds only one set worldwide, at the Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar. The British Library holds the first volume only, and the Library of Congress the second volume, with vol. I supplied from the second edition of 1905.
Goedeke IV/2, 503, η (second edition).