Beschreibung:

MANDEL'SHTAM, Osip Emil'evich (1891-1938). Kamen'. Stikhi. [The Stone. Poems]. St Petersburg: Akme [printed at the author's expense by Iu. Mansfeld], 1913. An important association copy of the first edition of the first book by Russia's greatest 20th-century poet. Having been part of Mandel’shtam’s own library for twenty-three years, this copy was inscribed in personal accents and presented by the author to the critic Sergei Rudakov (1909-1944), who had lived with him and his wife Nadezhda for a year and a half during their exile in Voronezh. Rudakov quickly became a crucial figure in those difficult years, and a trusted repository of the poet’s creativity when few people dared to risk such connection. In her memoirs, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam records how some of her husband’s verses composed in those years survived: she memorized many, and entrusted others to Rudakov. 'During the whole of our three years in Voronezh, I made copies of everything and distributed them to such people as I could find, but apart from my brother Evgeni (who in any case kept nothing at his own home) I had nobody I could rely on to take them. Not, that is, until Sergei Borisovich Rudakov turned up' ( Hope against Hope , p.271). Nadezhda also remarks that Rudakov ‘himself wrote elegant verse (a little under the influence of Tsvetaeva) which was popular at the time’ (p.274). In Voronezh, Rudakov also befriended Anna Akhmatova, and was entrusted with Gumilev's archive. When Rudakov died at the front in 1944, Akhmatova dedicated the poem 'Pamiati druga' to his memory. Mandel’shtam’s inscription dates from July 1936, and resonates with information of a very personal nature: ‘This little book caused great distress to my deceased mother when she read N.O. Lerner's review of it in Rech ’. This copy appears to have been the only copy which Mandel’shtam had retained amongst his own possession from 1913 till 1936. Rudakov’s books formed a prized collection which eventually was sold by his widow, Lina Rudakova-Finkelshtein. The first edition of Kamen is rare, particularly inscribed: ABPC and AE record only two others, a copy inscribed to Aleksandr Vir (Christie's, 21 May 2014, lot 59, £80,500) and one to Viacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (Christie's, 28 November 2018, lot 171, £118,750). Martin, 'Collecting Mandelstam' in Caxtonian , vol. 14, no. 11, 2006, pp. 1-16. Octavo (210 x 139mm). (Light staining on the title.) Original green wrappers printed in black and repeating the design of the title page (light fading near the edges; light wear to the extremities). Provenance: Osip Mandelshtam (presentation inscription to:) – Sergei Rudakov (1909-1944, critic and literary historian).