May 2012 | Rebecca Rego Barry

ZH Books

Catalogue Review: ZH Books, #2

ZH Cover.pngZhenya Dzhavgova, recently featured on our blog as a 'Bright Young Thing,' specializes in Eastern European literature and Slavic language material. She is based in California and released this second catalogue last month; it has been well received in the trade both for its content and its minimalist black-and-white design (appropriately evocative of the material).

ZH offers a fine selection of books on drama, linguistics, and literature, including the first Russian edition of Lolita ($2,800), as well as books of political interest. A 1949 history of the anti-Imperialism struggles of Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, and the Philippines, published in Moscow, is a particularly interesting find ($80).

There is a first edition of Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov's Muzhe ($3,000). Because Markov was banned and then assassinated in 1978, "first editions of his writings are virtually impossible to find."

In children's books, an edition of Hamlet translated by Boris Pasternak from 1956 and illustrated with in-line engravings ($90) is but one of several places where the Russian poet and novelist pops up in this catalogue. The "Reputed Feltrinelli First Russian Edition" of Doctor Zhivago from 1958 is here, too, with a description of its "exceedingly complicated" publishing history ($780).

If this area of collecting is of interest, request a catalogue directly from ZH via email: zhenya.dzhavgova@gmail.com.
 
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