San Francisco: North Point Press, 1988. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. ix, [1], 260, [2] pages. DJ is price clipped. Small stamp on bottom edge. Includes Author's Preface, Shapinsky's Karma; Art's Father, Vladek's Son; Jensen's Shangri-la; Lennie's Illusion; Slonimsky's Failure; and Bogg's Bills, as well as Preface. The opening essay, "Shapinsky's Karma," tells the story of Akumal Ramachander, an English teacher from Bengalore, India,who, on his first trip to America, stumbles upon the work of a completely unknown, utterly reclusive, virtually destitute sixty year-old abstract painter named Harold Shapinsky. Ramachander decides it is his karma--his destiny in live--to bring this unlikely subject to fame and worldly success--and, surmounting all obstacles, he proceeds to de exactly that. Like the other essays in the collection, this true-life version of a contemporary art-world fairy tale is what Mr. Weschler calls a "passion piece"--these are stories of people merely going about their everyday business and ending up somewhere entirely different from where they thought they were headed. These stories are marked not only by the rare enthusiasms of their subjects but equally by the energy, empathy, intelligence, wit, and insight that Mr. Weschler brings to them. These are stories of people merely going about their everyday lives, when suddenly they seem to catch fire, becoming utterly obsessed, and ending up somewhere entirely different from where they though they were headed. These fascinating stories are marked not only by the rare enthusiasms of their subjects, but equally by the energy, empathy, intelligence, wit, and insight that Mr. Weschler brings to them. More

Philadelphia, PA: University of PA Press, 1939. 395, illus., endpaper maps, some soiling inside front flyleaf, DJ in plastic sleeve, DJ soiled & small pieces missing. More

New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965. 324, illus., index, lib bkplate & stamps, glue residue ins rear flylf, top corner fr flylf cut off, DJ sl soiled & in plastic sl The author and her husband, Wladimir Woytinsky, both economists, met in Siberia, were exiled from Russia after the Revolution, and lived for a timein Germany before arriving in the United States in 1935. More

Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1927. 324, boards scuffed and soiled, some wear at spine, pages have darkened. More

New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1935. First Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. 317, [3] pages. Inscribed by the author on the half-title page. To Ruth & Gordon Lewis - my pious friends and drunken companions of many many years standing. Nicholas Wreden. Cover has some wear and soiling. Rear board weak and has been strengthened with glue. The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It does not deal much with the author's Americanization, but offers an account of his personal experience in his native country during the first three years of the revolution. Nicholas Wreden was was born on November 30, 1901 in Saint St. Petersburg, Russia (and died in 1955) and was a noted translator and a Russian editors Member of the American Booksellers Association (president 1942-1943). In 1935, Wreden published his memoir, describing his journey from a middle-class, patriotic identity in late Imperial Russia though his flight from the Revolution and reinvention as an American citizen. Yet in the next twenty years, Wreden would live an impactful life - as a highly regarded translator from Russian and as an editor and a publishing executive (for Dutton and Little, Brown) commissioning both Russian and American literature. He helped choose the books selected for reading by US troops (the Armed Services Editions distributed during the Second World War) as well as determining the Russian-language literature available to America's Russian diaspora through his involvement with the Chekhov Publishing House. His double role as a translator and as an editor was significant in shaping our conception of what Russian literature means today. More

Munich: A-T-B Publishing, 1954. 88, wraps, illus., text has darkened, some soiling to covers. Text is in Russian. More

London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1944. First? Edition. First? Printing. 22 cm, 286, usual library markings, pages discolored, boards worn/soiled, part of DJ cut off & pasted to front endpaper, spine faded. More