DOSTOEVSKY’S SCHOOLMATE

Povesti i razskazy … Chast’ pervaia [– shestaia] [Stories and tales. Part I [– VI]].

Moscow, E. Barfknekht, 1858, & V. Grachev, 1859.

6 vols., 8vo, some light spotting and staining throughout, a little heavier in the last volume, but still a good copy in uniform Russian contemporary half morocco, spines lettered in gilt, marbled paper boards, rubbed.

£2000

Approximately:
US $2523€2333

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First collected edition of Grigorovich’s fiction, including the important stories Derevnia (The Village, 1846), Anton Goremyka (1847), Rybaki (The Fishermen, 1853) and Shkola gostepriimstva (The School of Hospitality, 1855).

‘Dmitry Grigorovich (1822–99) had the reputation of a major writer throughout his life, but he owes his place in Russian literature entirely to his short stories of the 1840s. A schoolmate of Dostoevsky’s and at one time his roommate, Grigorovich launched his literary career before Dostoevsky and was instrumental in his friend’s discovery by Nekrasov and Belinsky’ (Terras, History, p. 268). Grigorovich later played a principal part in the discovery of Chekhov.

‘Grigorovich’s most important works are the tales The Village (Derevnya, 1846) and Anton Goremyka, 1847. Both aroused considerable attention when they appeared in the progressive journal, Sovremennik. Important more for approach than for execution, the works were opposed to serfdom and were regarded as being written in the spirit of the Natural School, though the compassionate description of the misery of peasant life is more a form of sentimental naturalism. In them, Grigorovich went beyond the outward behaviour and speech of the peasantry and attempted to paint peasant life from the point of view of the characters on a background of a lyrical depiction of Russian nature. His work had considerable impact upon practitioners of the new literature. Anton Goremyka was highly esteemed by Belinsky, who saw in it the initiation of an era of exposés of rural life, while Saltykov-Shchedrin praised Grigorovich for achieving the humanization of the Russian peasant’ (Terras).

OCLC records copies at Indiana, North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Syracuse and Wisconsin.

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