Ilyin, M. (I. Ya. Marshak). Today and Yesterday: Stories about the Motherland (Segodnia i vchera: Rasskazy o Rodine), 1937. In Russian

Ильин, М. [И. Я. Маршак]. Сегодня и вчера: Рассказы о Родине.
Первое издание; подбор иллюстраций Ю. Ф. Слепян.
Художественное оформление: коленкоровый переплет с золотым и конгревным тиснением работы А. Н. Лео; хромолитографированные форзацы, заставки и инициалы работы Д. Е. Кутателадзе.
Москва—Ленинград: Издательство детской литературы, 1937.
350, [2] с.: ил., 16 л. ил.; энциклопедический формат (26,6×20 см).
Тираж: 50 000 экз.
Редкость.
***
Ilyin, M. [I. Ya. Marshak]. Today and Yesterday: Stories about the Motherland (Segodnia i vchera: Rasskazy o Rodine).
First edition; illustrations selected by Yu. F. Slepyan.
Art design: cloth binding with gold and embossed stamping by A. N. Leo; chromolithographed endpapers, headpieces, and initials by D. E. Kutateladze.
Moscow—Leningrad: State Children’s Literature Publishing House, 1937.
350, [2] p.: ill., 16 leaves of plates; folio (26.6×20 cm).
Print run: 50,000 copies.
Rare.

A sumptuously produced first edition of M. Ilyin’s (Ilya Yakovlevich Marshak, 1895–1953) patriotic collection Today and Yesterday, published on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1937. Ilyin, a chemical engineer and brother of the famous children’s poet Samuil Marshak, was a prominent author of Soviet popular science and propaganda literature. This volume, containing six ideologically charged stories contrasting the Soviet present with the tsarist past, is notable for its exceptional design: an elaborate cloth binding by artist A. N. Leo and rich interior chromolithography by D. E. Kutateladze. Despite the substantial print run, such high-quality illustrated editions from the late 1930s are scarce today.