[Georgian avant-garde] Lisashvili, Iakinte (Khomeriki). Vardnili (Rose Field) : a novel. Illustrated by D. Kutateladze, 1933. In Georgian.

ლისაშვილი, იაკინთე (ხომერიკი). ვარდნილი : რომანი / წინასიტყვაობა გ. ნატროშვილისა ; მხატვარი დ. ქუთათელაძე.
ტფილისი : გამომცემლობა "ფედერაცია", 1933. [XXXV], 312 გვერდი, ილუსტრირებული.
მაგარი საგამომცემლო ყდა, კონსტრუქტივისტული გეომეტრიული დეკორითა და ოქროსფერი რომბით წინა ყდაზე; ავანგარდული ფორზაცები. ტირაჟი 4 500 ც.
ყდა - კარგი: ცვეთა კიდეებზე და კუთხეებში, უკანა ყდაზე მცირე ლაქები. ბლოკი - ძალიან კარგი: ფურცლები მოყვითლო, ილუსტრაციები სუფთად შენარჩუნებული, ტექსტი სრული.
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Lisashvili, Iakinte (Iakinte Khomeriki). Vardnili (Rose Field) : a novel / foreword by G. Natroshvili ; illustrations by D. Kutateladze.
Tbilisi : "Federatsia" Publishing House, 1933. [XXXV], 312 pp., illustrated.
Publisher's cloth boards with a constructivist geometric design and a gilt-stamped rhombus on the front cover; avant-garde endpapers with a radiating linear design in orange and blue. Print run of 4,500 copies.
Boards good: wear to edges and corners, minor staining to rear board. Text block very good: leaves lightly toned, illustrations cleanly preserved, text complete throughout.

A striking example of Georgian avant-garde book design from the early Soviet period, the first edition of the novel "Vardnili" by Iakinte Lisashvili (born Iakinte Khomeriki, 1897-1972), a Georgian writer and playwright of peasant origin who worked his way up from a Batumi typesetting apprentice to become, from 1931 to 1936, director of the "Federatsia" publishing house itself, the very press that issued this novel. Lisashvili had already published several collections of verse in the 1920s before turning to long-form prose; "Vardnili," with its introductory essay by the critic G. Natroshvili, marked a significant step in his transition to the novel form and was followed the next year by his admission to the Union of Georgian Writers. The binding and endpapers, designed by the artist D. Kutateladze, exhibit a bold constructivist geometric idiom, radiating diagonal lines in orange and blue converging on faceted hexagonal panels, characteristic of the graphic design vocabulary Soviet Georgian publishers favored in the early 1930s before Socialist Realism displaced such experimentation; the text is accompanied by small woodcut-style vignette illustrations depicting Tbilisi street and mountain-camp scenes. The volume's later gift inscription, in Russian and not in the author's hand, adds a note of personal provenance without diminishing the book's chief interest, which lies in its distinctive avant-garde production and its place in the early literary career of a writer who was, at the moment of its publication, simultaneously his own publisher.