SOLOGUB, Fedor [Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov]. (Trans. John Cournos).

First British edition. Original green cloth, printed in black, 319 pp., 16 pp. Secker catalogue in two parts bound in back. Spine ends and corners bruised, spine and cloth generally somewhat darkened from handling, top edge dusty, very mild spotting to fore-edges, clean and tight inside. A Good copy. Фёдор Сологу́б, Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov (1863-1927). “The most versatile of the Russian ‘decadents’ and Symbolists”. First published in 1907 as ‘Tvorimaia legenda’ with a revised edition in 1914, this is the third, and by far the most controversial of Sologub’s novels. The John Cournos translation ”preserves a certain authenticity (due in part to his having moved in Symbolist circles)”. Cournos (Ivan Korshun Иван Григорьевич Коршун 1881-1966), Russian-Jewish literary figure emigrated to the US at an early age and also lived in Britain. A distinguished writer in his time he is now perhaps better known for his unhappy affair with Dorothy L. Sayers. Baran in Cornwall (1998), Terras 433 (1985).