BULGAKOV, Mikhail.

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The Master and Margarita. First edition of the complete, uncensored text in Russian, with the restored passages printed in italics. It was produced in a pocket-sized format to be more easily taken into the Soviet Union.Although the novel was completed around 1938, like most of Bulgakov's prose it was not published until long after his death. A heavily censored version first appeared in 1966 in the periodical Moskva. It then circulated in samizdat form before being published in 1967 as a book in Paris by the YMCA Press. The uncensored text was first published in English later that year, but the full text in Russian was not published until this 1969 edition. "As was typical of the period, this version came out in a 'pocket edition', a 3" x 4" volume printed in tiny print on very fine paper, ideal for slipping into a back pocket as a means of smuggling it back into the country through Soviet customs" (Curtis, p. 47). Possev also published an edition in octavo format in red cloth in the same year; no priority has been established.During his life, Bulgakov was best known for the plays he contributed to the Moscow Art Theatre. He published a number of novels and stories throughout the early 1920s, but later began to be labelled anti-Soviet. By 1929 his career was ruined; government censorship prevented publication or staging of any of his work and Stalin personally forbade him to emigrate.Possev was founded in 1946, "its name deliberately symbolic i.e. sowing the seeds of enlighten

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