Kiacheli, Leo. Novellas (Novelebi). Cover design by Lado Gudiashvili. 1934. In Georgian.

ქიაჩელი, ლეო (1884-1963). ნოველები / მხატვარი ლადო გუდიაშვილი.
[ტფილისი] : სახელგამი, 1934. [4], 347 გვერდი ; 18 სმ.
მაგარი ყდა, გუდიაშვილის ორნამენტული ნახატით (წითლად ბეჭდური ქსოვილზე). ტირაჟი 4 000 ც.
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Kiacheli, Leo (pseudonym of Leon Shengelaia, 1884-1963). Novellas / cover and binding design by Lado Gudiashvili (1896-1980).
[Tbilisi] : Sakhelgami (State Publishing House of the Georgian SSR), 1934. [4], 347 pp. ; 18 cm.
Hardcover; cloth boards with Gudiashvili's ornamental design printed in red. Print run of 4,000 copies.
Binding good: cloth evenly aged and toned, corners lightly worn, Gudiashvili design clear and intact. Text block good: text pages evenly age-toned; text complete and legible throughout.

Leo Kiacheli (pseudonym of Leon Mikhailovich Shengelaia, 1884-1963) was one of the central figures of Georgian Soviet prose, celebrated above all for his novel Gvadi Bigva (გვადი ბიღვა), the canonical fictional treatment of revolutionary transformation in the Georgian countryside that secured his place among the leading Soviet prose writers of his generation. Born into a noble family in western Georgia, Kiacheli studied law at Kharkiv University, participated in the revolutionary movement of 1905-1907, escaped from Kutaisi Prison in a celebrated tunnel breakout he later fictionalized, and spent 1912-1917 in Geneva before returning permanently to Soviet Georgia. The present volume, issued by Sakhelgami in 1934, gathers approximately twenty novellas and stories representing the full range of his mature prose of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The collection is of notable literary-historical interest: it includes early versions of narratives Kiacheli would later develop into independent works of wider fame, among them stories sharing subjects and protagonists with Almasgir Kibulan, Tavadis Kali Maya (Princess Maya), and Haki Adzba. The author's preface "From the Author" (ავტორისაგან) situates the collection within the literary debates of early Soviet Georgian culture. The volume's particular collector distinction lies in its binding design by Lado Gudiashvili (1896-1980), Georgia's most internationally celebrated visual artist of the twentieth century. After studying in Tbilisi alongside Niko Pirosmani and David Kakabadze and spending the formative years 1919-1926 in Paris, where he exhibited alongside Modigliani, Goncharova, and Larionov, Gudiashvili returned to Soviet Georgia as the dominant figure in Georgian visual culture. In the early 1930s he worked extensively as a book graphic artist for Sakhelgami and allied publishers; the cloth binding of the present volume, with its red calligraphic border and flowing vine medallion, is a characteristic example of his Georgian ornamental graphic style of this period. Georgian Soviet books with documented Gudiashvili binding designs form a recognized and actively sought collecting category that rarely appears on the international market.