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[NEW ZEALAND] Novaya Zelandiya i Okeania, ili Ostrova Yuzhnogo Moria [i.e. New Zealand and Oceania, or the Islands of the South Sea].

St. Petersburg-Moscow: Obschestvennaya polza, 1874. Item #701

638 pp., ill., 2 folding maps. Modern half-leather binding. Uncut. Front wrapper is preserved in the binding. Illustrated throughout with the steel engravings (in text, full-page and double-page).
First book in Russian dedicated to New Zealand.
The Russian translation of the book ‘Ozeanien, die Inseln der Südsee : aeltere und neuere Erforschungsreisen im Gebiete der Inselgruppen des Stillen Ozeans / von Fr. Christmann und Richard Oberländer, 1873’.
Extremely rare: the only copy according to Worldcat is in Polish National Library; the copy of Russian National Library is lacking text and a map.
Both State Library of NSW and Australian National Library have second edition of this book, published in 1875.
The book is signed on the wrapper and on the title page by Sergei Markov (1905-1965), dated 1944. He was one of the most important book collectors of Leningrad in 1930-60s. His wife has famously saved his library during the first years of the war, when Markov was in the army and Leningrad was under blockade, by not putting them in the fire which was the common practise in the city during the war. When Markov returned to his hometown in 1944 he continued to collect books, wounded after the war (he lost his right arm in action). He has been known for the attention to condition, most of the books in his collection were in original wrappers.

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