PUSHKIN, Alexander.

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The Talisman. With Other Pieces. First edition, one of 100 copies published. George Borrow was Pushkin's first English translator and a compositor who may have set his translation himself. The miscellany contains the poems "The Talisman" and "The Mermaid" by Pushkin, along with "Ancient Russian Songs", "Ancient Ballad", and "The Renegade" from other sources.Borrow's miscellanies The Talisman and Targum, which appeared a couple of months earlier, each included two pieces by Pushkin and were the first publications to translate the great Russian poet into English. They were published in St Petersburg, where Borrow lived from 1833 to 1835 to oversee the printing of a Manchu version of the New Testament on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society. After Borrow left Russia, Pushkin received a copy of The Talisman and regretted missing the opportunity to meet his first English translator.Back in England, Borrow (1803-1881) reported on his time in Russia to the Bible Society before being swiftly dispatched to Portugal and Spain. "In Russia and the Peninsula, Borrow worked energetically, and sometimes heroically, on the society's behalf. In Spain, civil war made his expeditions risky, while the hostile attitude of the authorities, coupled with his own provocative approach, led twice to his imprisonment" (ODNB).This copy is bound with the first edition of Borrow's posthumous miscellany, The Turkish Jester, number 7 of 150 copies only. Aside from his missionary work, Borrow's "un

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