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[MANDELSTAM MASTERPIECE] Egipetskaia marka [i.e. Egyptian Stamp]

Mandelstam, O.

Leningrad: Priboi, 1928. Item #1159

187, [5] pp. 17,5x13 cm. In original printed wrappers. Covers and spine rubbed, with tears and minor fragments lost, some stains, ink note on the last page, otherwise very good.

First full publication. Cover design was produced by artist and engraver Evgenii Belukha (1889-1943). In the 1920-1930s, he contributed to the Soviet book design, working with publishing houses Gosizdat, Priboi, Academia. During World War II Belukha was locked in Leningrad where he designed propaganda posters.
The prose collection included the only attempt of not autobiographical prose by Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) - ‘Egyptian Stamp’, as well as ‘The Noise of Time’ (1923) and ‘Theodosia’ (1923-1924). ‘Egyptian Stamp’ was created in 1927, during the pause in the author’s poetic activity. Overall twenty pages of text were printed in a magazine ‘Zvezda’ (#5) in 1928 as well.
All in all, Mandelstam published one prose book, one poetry collection and one collection of articles in 1928. This was the last year when articles on him appeared in the Soviet press without let or hindrance. It was the last year when Mandelstam was still considered the Soviet poet and when the scandal around him happened. He had just adapted one’s translation of ‘Till Eulenspiegel’ but was credited as the translator and then was awfully criticized in the press. These last books by Mandelstam were published 10 years before his death in the camp. In the 1930s, his oeuvre appeared only in periodicals, and extremely rarely, each time causing sharp attacks from critics and censorship.
‘Egyptian Stamp’ was the work making Anna Akhmatova say that there was no such literature in the entire 20th century.

Worldcat shows copies in Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Brigham Young and the City University of New York, Middlebury College and Los Angeles Public Library.

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