Zedginidze, Elizbar. Before Sunrise (Mzis amosvlamde): a novel. Tbilisi, 1960. With 7 illustrated plates. In Georgian.

ზედგინიძე, ელიზბარ. მზის ამოსვლამდე : რომანი.
თბილისი : გამომცემლობა "საბჭოთა საქართველო", 1960. 286 გვერდი, [7] ფურცელი ილუსტრაცია ; 20 სმ.
მაგარი ყდა, წითელი ტვისნაცერი ლურჯი ზურგით, წინა ყდაზე შავ-თეთრი სილუეტური გამოსახულება. ტირაჟი 10 000 ც.
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Zedginidze, Elizbar. Before Sunrise : a novel.
Tbilisi : "Sabchota Sakartvelo" State Publishing House, 1960. 286 pp., with 7 inserted illustrated plates ; 20 cm.
Hardcover, red pictorial paper-covered boards with blue cloth spine, front board with a black silhouette illustration of three armed figures advancing against a white cloud-burst on a red ground. Print run of 10,000 copies.
Binding good: corners rubbed, surface scuffing and light staining to front board. Text block very good: firm, plates fully preserved.

A Soviet-era edition of Elizbar Zedginidze's novel Before Sunrise, by this Tbilisi-born prose writer (1903-1983) who began publishing in the 1920s and became a fixture of twentieth-century Georgian socialist-realist fiction; his other major novels include Igvidzeben mtebi (The Mountains Awaken, 1934), depicting the socialist transformation of the Ajarian countryside, and the later historical novel Ubatono kveq'ana (1975). The present volume carries seven half-tone illustrated plates depicting scenes of village and marketplace life, rendered in a detailed pencil-drawing style typical of Georgian Soviet book illustration of the period, and a striking pictorial cover in red and black showing three armed figures in silhouette advancing through smoke, characteristic of the graphic design used for adventure and wartime narrative fiction of the era. The volume will appeal to collectors of mid-century Georgian book illustration and Soviet Georgian popular fiction.