Eugene Onéguine. A Romance of Russian Life. In Verse (Eugene Onegin).

PUSHKIN, Alexander.

$9,800.00

Item Number: 75078

London: Macmillan, 1881.

First edition in English of Pushkin’s masterpiece, Eugene Onegin, a cornerstone of Russian literature. Octavo, original cloth, gilt titles to the spine, gilt tooling to the front panel. Translated by Lieutenant-Colonel Spalding. In near condition with a touch of rubbing. First editions are scarce.

Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, his unique ‘novel in verse,’ introduces a “14-line stanza, with an intricate pattern of masculine and feminine rhymes,” and is valued by the Russians “beyond any other work of their most cherished writer… Like Stendhal’s Rouge et Noir, which appeared about the same time, the Russian work was a pioneer effort… It marks the beginning of Russia’s literary maturity… The poem is Pushkin’s major performance and the one which gives the fullest measure of his genius” (Avrahm Yarmolinsky). Basis for the opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which was first performed in Moscow in 1879. It was the basis for the 1999 film Onegin directed by Martha Fiennes, starring Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler and Toby Stephens. Martha Fiennes received the Best Director Award at the Tokyo Film Festival and the London Film Critics Circle's award for Best Newcomer. It was also nominated for Best British Film at the British Academy Film Awards and Liv Tyler received the Golden Aries prize for Best Foreign Actress from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.