Condition Report
Contact Information
Lot 90
Sale 759 - Selections from the Library of Gerald and Barbara Weiner
Oct 8, 2020
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
Own a similar item?
Estimate
$500 -
700
Price Realized
$625
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
GUMILEV, Nicolay Stepanovich (1886-1921). Zhemchuga. Stikhi. [Pearls. Verses.] Moscow: Skorpion, 1910.
8vo. Half-title; 6pp. advertisements. (Browning, some light marginal chipping). Modern cloth-backed linen; original front wrapper bound in (laid down with repairs).
FIRST EDITION, published in the year that Gumilev married poet Anna Akhmatova. Dissatisfied with the mysticism of Russian Symbolism, Gumilev and Sergei Gorodetsky established the Guild of Poets, modeled after the medieval guilds of Western Europe. The Guild advocated that, like an architect, a poet needed to adhere to higher levels of craftsmanship; they compared writing a poem to building a cathedral. Zhemchuga. Stikhi was the first collection Gumilev published to illustrate the Guild’s principles. Kilgour 420.

