[FIRST RUSSIAN STEINBECK] Grozdiya gneva / Perevod s angl. N. Volzhinoi [i.e. The Grapes of Wrath / Translated from English by N. Volzhina]

by Steinbeck, J.

$1,000 · Offered by Biblio

First edition

Moscow: Gosizdat, 1940. 504 pp.: ill., 1 front. (ill.). 20x13,5 cm. Illustrations by L. Brodaty. In original publisher's illustrated card boards. Covers slightly rubbed, owner's signature on the front endpaper, owner's ink book stamp on the title page, pp. 17, 41, 504; a small wormhole on the lower side of a few pages. Otherwise a very good clean copy. First Russian edition. First book by Steinbeck in Russian. Although the book was banned shortly in Ireland and few American towns (in schools and libraries) it was for obvious reasons never banned in Soviet Union. It was important for Soviet authorities to monitor what was published in the West. Unfortunately for them it was a hard task to find anything suitable for their purposes - a high standard bright foreign fiction with correct ideology. That is why Grapes of Wrath was a definite bombshell not only in America but even more so in Soviet Union. It made Steinbeck famous in a day. Starting in August of 1939 such newspapers as Pradva, Ogonyok, Literary Newspaper printed short fragments from Grapes of Wrath. Soviet newspapers made it famous even before it was fully published. For example, Izvestiya from November 17th 1939 with an article titled "Grapes of Wrath - banned in USA" about a campaign against the book across America: "...because it reflects the hard situation and conditions in which farmers live in California". Soviet anticapitalist interpretation was obvious and announced instantly in many reviews, e.g. in one of the

• Publisher: Gosizdat
• Year: 1940
• Edition: First Edition
• Binding: unknown

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