[ANARCHISTS & I.W.W.] TOLSTOÏ, Leo [alt. spelling Tolstoy]; Benj. R. Tucker, trans.

The Kreutzer Sonata

Boston: Benj. R. Tucker, 1890. First American Edition. 12mo (17cm.); publisher's orange decorative card wrappers; 143pp. Some wear to wrapper extremities including shallow chips at spine ends, faint dampstain to top edge of upper cover not bleeding into textblock, else a Very Good, tight and unfaded copy.

Though Tolstoy never considered himself an anarchist, he was among the American movement's literary darlings due to his sympathetic portrayals of the peasant class and anti-militarist views. The present translation, by radical publisher and individualist anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker, was his major bestseller (62,000 copies reported) and ran into multiple printings despite being banned from the mails under the Comstock Act for indecency (the novella portrays a man whose jealousy leads him to murder his wife). The only other copies of this title currently on the market (November, 2018) are later printings. Reference: Candace Falk, ed. "Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years," Vol. 1, p. 559. No priority established between this and the first London edition, both first appearing in June, 1890 (see "Bibliography of Russian Literature in English Translation to 1945," p. 42). See also Roger E. Stoddard, "'Liberty's Library': Benj. R. Tucker's Imprint, 1875-1912," in Essays in Honor of William B. Todd (1991), p. 165, citing a reprint.

Price: $850.00

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