Zemnoi Prostor. [Earthly Space].

PASTERNAK, Boris.

$4,800.00

Item Number: 145453

Moscow: Sovietskiy Pistatel, 1945.

Rare first edition paperback of this collection of poems. Duodecimo, original wrappers with embossed titles to the front panel. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front pastedown, “To the deeply respected Nikolai Sergeyevich Bartenev, for a good memory B. Pasternak May 10, 1946.” The recipient, Bartenev, is recorded as serving in the Russian Army during World War I, as the Commander of a battery on Moonsund, or the Western Estonian archipelago, in the Vainameri Sea off the coast of Estonia. His relationship with Pasternak is not exactly known, though he may have been related to the famous Russian publishing family. In very good condition with some toning to the front and rear panel, rubbing to the extremities, spine and verso of the rear panel. Books signed and inscribed by Pasternak are rare.

Boris Pasternak was an accomplished writer, poet, and translator who won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel 'Doctor Zhivago' (1957), literary recognition from the West that proved extremely dangerous to him in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union. Pasternak published this poetry collection in 1945, and it represented a distinctive stylistic break with his earlier poetry. The anthology title, 'Zemnoi Prostor,' has been variously translated into the following titles in English: 'Earthly Space;' 'Earthly Spaciousness;' 'Earthly Openness;' 'Earth's Vastness;' 'Terrestrial Expanse' and 'Expanses of Land.' The translated titles vary, but all convey a sense of immensity. Literary critics usually group 'Zemnoi Prostor' along with two later works which Pasternak wrote in terms of his style and themes: 'Na rannikh poezdakh' ['On Earthly Trains'] and 'Kogda razguliaetsia' ['When the Weather Clears'].