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[PRE-REVOLUTIONARY JUVENILE LITERATURE] Katalog detskikh knig knigoizdatel’stva A.D. Stupina [i.e. Catalog of Children’s Books of A.D. Stupin Publishing House]

Moscow: A.D. Stupin, 1914. Item #1821

82 pp. 20x15 cm. In original illustrated wrappers by V. S. Small spots on front cover, tears of spine with small fragments lost, covers detached from block, tears of blank margin of first leaf. Otherwise uncut and clean internally.

Cover design was created by artist Vasily Spassky (1870-1923). He graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and continued studying at Fernand Cormon’s studio in Paris. When Spassky came back, he began contributing to designs of magazines ‘Niva’ [Field], ‘Detskoe chtenie’ [Children’s Reading], ‘Prosveshchenie’ [Enlightenment], ‘Svetliachok’ [Firefly] and – that’s more essential – books of Stupin Publishing House. He made a radical reform in the design of books of this publishing house, starting with the cover designs. Apart from that, he himself wrote and published nonfiction books for children. After the Revolution, he was invited to VTSIK publishing house for designing propaganda editions.
Alexei Dmitrievich Stupin (1846-1915) was one of the largest booksellers-publishers of the 1870-1880s. Then and later his enterprise published luboks, religious, folk, fiction, children’s, reference and educational literature by Russian and foreign authors. Children’s literature was published more than other segments. In particular, there was a popular series of miniature children’s books “Bibliotechka Stupina” [Stupin’s Library]. It opens this catalog, with an annotation on the series.’Stupin’s Library’ included fairy tales, historical stories, travels, popular essays about the life of nature, games, fun, etc. According to contemporaries, he paid well to artists and engravers.
Stupin vastly decorated his books with engravings. He made his demands on artists, engravers, materials used, and on technique of publishing. Stupin’s books were printed in the best Moscow printing houses, owners of which considered it an honor to work with him. Stupin worked with writers and educators I. Derkachev, V. Avenarius, A. Fedorov-Davydov, artists and engravers M. Nesterov, I. Pavlov, I. Panov, N. Karazin, A. Apsit, V. Spassky, A. Yanov, K. Lebedev, et al.
Stupin himself died in 1915. Most likely, this is the last catalog of children’s books he printed. The company [under the control of his son] continued publishing until nationalization in 1918.
Books are gathered in a table of two columns and are sorted by price.

Not found in Worldcat.

Status: On Hold