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[MAYKOVSKY ON LENIN] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Mayakovsky, V.V.

Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1925. Item #511

94, [1] pp. 17,2x13 cm. In original printed wrappers with constructivist design on the front wrapper (and in a later full cloth case with lettering in Swedish). Very good, loss of the small fragment of the margin of the back wrapper, spine is rebacked with paper, owner’s notes in ink (front wrapper) and pencil (t.p. and dedication l.), ink stamps on the t.p. (Swedish bookshop and VOKS), generally slightly rubbed.

First edition. One of 10000 copies. Rare. Cover designed E. Shol’te.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is an epic poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky written in 1923-1924. Mayakovsky started working upon the poem called originally just ‘‘Lenin’’ soon after the funeral (the death and funeral which he attended made a profound impression upon the poet), then took a break. Mayakovsky’s elder sister Lyudmila remembered: ‘‘Volodya took Lenin’s death very personally. For him it was like the loss of a dear, close person. He believed in him. He loved him from those early days of working in the revolutionary underground. So shaken was he by this death that for some time couldn’t nd it in him to express his feelings [in writing]... [Mayakovsky] has been coming back to Lenin’s memory and ideas throughout his life. Because it was Lenin’s struggle for the shining ideals of Communism, that Vladimir considered his own life’s meaning’’. (Wikipedia) The work resumed in April 1925 and continued till September. On October 3 Mayakovsky signed the publishing contract with Gosizdat.

Kilgour. 680

Worldcat locates copies at Getty, Harvard, Princeton, Amherst.

Price: $1,500.00