Doctor Zhivago.

PASTERNAK, Boris.

Item Number: 90654

New York: Pantheon Books, 1959.

First American illustrated edition of the work which garnered Pasternak the Nobel Prize in literature. Octavo, bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in full red morocco, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, raised bands, gilt ruled to the front and rear panels, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Translated from the Russian by Max Hayward and Manya Harari. Includes illustrations by Alexander Alexeieff, reproduced here in collaboration with Claire Parker using the ‘pin-screen’ process which they themselves first developed in 1931. In fine condition. An exceptional example.

In his 1958 New Yorker review, Edmund Wilson called the novel "one of the very great books of our time Doctor Zhivago will, I believe, come to stand as one of the great events in man’s literary and moral history." It was not allowed to appear in the Soviet Union until 1987, twenty-seven years after the author’s death. The novel was made into a film by David Lean in 1965, and since then has twice been adapted for television, most recently as a miniseries for Russian TV in 2006.