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[CARICATURE] Sto chetyre risunka k poeme N. V. Gogolia “Mertvye dushi” [One Hundred and Four Drawings for N. V. Gogol’s Poem Dead Souls]

Agin, A.

Item #2822

St. Petersburg: V. I. Gubinsky, 1893. 4 pp., 104 leaves of illustrations. Large folio (33.5 × 25.5 cm [13 ¼ × 10 in.]).

Contemporary half-leather binding with marbled paper-covered boards and blind-stamped title on the spine. Minor losses to the marbled paper on the boards, spine rubbed, text block somewhat shaken, occasional tears to the leaves, page 9 torn in two pieces with a fragment of blank margin lost; otherwise a good copy.

Provenance: According to the ownership stamp and inscription on the front endpaper, the volume belonged to Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Gofman of Elizavetpol (present-day Ganja, Azerbaijan), who inscribed the book in 1899. The provenance represents an early and uncommon example of a book from the library of a Jewish resident of Elizavetpol, the important trade town (population at the time - 25000 people) in South Caucasus.

Fourth edition. An important illustrated edition of one of the most celebrated visual interpretations of Gogol's Dead Souls. Created by Alexander Agin (1817–1875) and engraved by Evstafy Bernardsky (1819–1889), the series occupies a central place in the history of nineteenth-century Russian book illustration. Agin's drawings became the first extensive visual cycle devoted to Dead Souls, shaping the public image of Gogol's characters for generations of readers and influencing subsequent illustrators of the work.

The publication history of the series is unusually complex. The first edition was issued by Bernardsky in 1846 in separate installments, each containing four illustrations. Although twenty-five installments were planned, publication ceased prematurely after disagreements between the publisher and one of the financial backers, the Arkhangelsk honorary citizen Goryainov, to whom the publication rights and printing plates subsequently passed. In 1892 the bookseller D.. Fedorov acquired from Goryainov's heirs the original plates, including twenty-eight previously unpublished engravings by Bernardsky. He first issued them under the title One Hundred Drawings for Gogol's Poem, followed later that same year by revised second and third editions entitled One Hundred and Four Drawings for the Poem by N. V. Gogol “Dead Souls.” These editions incorporated not only the original illustrations but also a photographic reproduction of the announcement for the 1846 edition and three additional drawings by Agin preserved in the collection of the noted bibliophile I. A. Efremov. In 1893 the publication rights passed to V. I. Gubinsky, who issued the present fourth edition in substantially the same form.

Alexander Agin (1817–1875) was among the pioneers of Russian book illustration and one of the most important graphic artists of the nineteenth century. A graduate of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he achieved lasting fame through his illustrations to Gogol's Dead Souls, which combined careful observation of character with a vivid sense of social satire. His collaborator, Evstafy Bernardsky (1819–1889), was one of the leading Russian engravers of his generation and played a crucial role in translating Agin's drawings into a form suitable for large-scale publication.

Worldcat shows the only copy of this edition at Kansas University.

Status: On Hold