Розов, Б. К незримому солнцу: Повесть.
Ленинград: Советский писатель, 1939.
86 с.; обычный формат.
Ответственный редактор Г. Сорокин. Технический редактор А. Кирнарская. Корректор Р. Бекетова. Художник А. Ушин.
Тираж 10 000 экз.
Набрано в типографии "Печатный Двор" им. А. М. Горького, отпечатано в типографии "Ленинградская Правда".
В издательском коленкоровом переплёте чёрного цвета с орнаментальной блинтовой рамкой, тиснёным именем автора и красным названием на верхней крышке.
Состояние: хорошее. Переплёт сохраняет крепость, но сильно потёрт по краям и углам с обнажением картона; корешок и углы потрёпаны. Блок чистый, страницы со слабой возрастной желтизной, текст ясный.
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Rozov, B. K Nezrimomu Solntsu [Toward the Unseen Sun]: A Novella.
Leningrad: Sovetsky Pisatel' (Soviet Writer), 1939.
86 pp.; standard format.
Editor G. Sorokin. Technical editor A. Kirnarskaia. Proofreader R. Beketova. Cover artist A. Ushin.
Print run: 10,000 copies.
Typeset at the "Pechatny Dvor" Printing House named after A. M. Gorky; printed at the "Leningradskaia Pravda" press, Leningrad.
In publisher's black cloth binding with blind-stamped ornamental border, blind-stamped author's name and red-stamped title on the upper cover.
Condition: good. Binding remains firm but heavily rubbed at edges and corners, with cloth fraying and underlying boards exposed at the spine ends and corners. Text block clean, pages lightly age-toned, text crisp throughout.
A scarce pre-war Leningrad novella based on the biography of the Russian/Soviet artist Vasily Nechaev (Vasilii Nechaev), who continued to paint after losing his sight — a fact reinforced by the Beethoven epigraph from the "Heiligenstadt Testament", the composer's anguished 1802 confession of his encroaching deafness. The two-part structure ("Painting in Darkness" / "Artist of Life") moves the protagonist from late-Imperial Petersburg — the opening scene places the artist Protanov on Nevsky Prospect at the Kazan Cathedral amid a student demonstration, with student caps and "kursistka" hats and a watchful pristav's assistant in white gloves — through the catastrophe of blindness and into the affirmative Soviet ethos of overcoming disability through creative labour, a theme heavily promoted in late-1930s Soviet literature. Issued by Sovetsky Pisatel' on the very eve of the Second World War (set 1 April 1939, signed for printing 20 June 1939), the volume is the work of a small group of Leningrad professionals: cover artist A. Ushin (Aleksei Ushin, of the celebrated dynasty of Leningrad book designers), editor G. Sorokin, and technical editor A. Kirnarskaia. With a modest print run of 10,000 — most of which would be lost during the Siege of Leningrad two years later — surviving copies of this Leningrad imprint are uncommon, particularly in their original publisher's cloth.