[Signed] Ia Kargareteli. Tavparavneli Ch'abuki (The Youth of Tavparavani): A Folk Legend in Verse / recorded in the village of Ertatsminda from the telling of Gabo Eshmakunashvili, 1928. In Georgian.

თავფარავნელი ჭაბუკი : ხალხური ლეგენდა [ლექსად] / ჩაწერილი სოფელ ერთაწმინდაში გაბო ეშმაკუნაშვილის თქმით ია კარგარეთელის მიერ. ხელმოწერილი ავტორის მიერ, დათარიღებული 23.I.1928.
ტფილისი : პოლიგრაფტრესტის 1-ლი სტამბა, 1928. 48 გვერდი ; 18 სანტიმეტრი.
ნაბეჭდი გარეკანი. ტირაჟი 1 500 ცალი.
ფურცლების ნაწილი გაუჭრელია.
ყდა - ძალიან კარგი: მსუბუქი გაცვეთა კიდეებზე. ბლოკი - ძალიან კარგი: ფურცლები სუფთა და მთლიანი.
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Tavparavneli Ch'abuki (The Youth of Tavparavani): A Folk Legend in Verse / recorded in the village of Ertatsminda from the telling of Gabo Eshmakunashvili by Ia Kargareteli. Signed by the author, with an inscription dated 23 January 1928.
Tbilisi: Poligraftrest, 1st Printing House, 1928. 48 pp. ; 18 cm.
Original paper wrappers. Print run of 1,500 copies.
A portion of the leaves remain unopened (uncut).
Binding very good: light edge wear. Text block very good: leaves clean and complete.

"Tavparavneli Ch'abuki" is one of the best-known ballads of Georgian oral tradition, first recorded in 1882 and current chiefly in eastern Georgia. It tells of a young man from Tavparavani who swims by night across a river toward his beloved, guided by a candle she lights for him, until a malevolent old woman extinguishes the flame and he drowns; Georgian folklorists have long noted its kinship with the Greek myth of Hero and Leander. This 1928 pamphlet preserves a specific oral variant of the ballad, taken down from the telling of Gabo Eshmakunashvili in the village of Ertatsminda by the composer and folklorist Ia (Ilia) Kargareteli (1867-1939), Honored Art Worker of Georgia (1938), a pioneer of the modern Georgian urban romance song and the compiler of three published collections of Georgian folk song (1890, 1909, and the 1921 "Georgian Children's Songs"). Ertatsminda, the village where this variant was recorded, was Kargareteli's own birthplace, underscoring his lifelong engagement with the oral culture of his native region as both a singer and a collector. Issued in a modest run of 1,500 copies, the present copy is additionally signed and dated by Kargareteli himself on the title page, some weeks after publication, transforming it into a documented association copy from the folklorist responsible for its transcription. It is of interest to collectors of Georgian oral literature, ethnomusicology, and the history of Georgian folklore collecting in the early Soviet period.