Beschreibung:

ROJANKOVSKY, FEODOR STEPANOVICH, illustrator. Dnevnik foksa Mikki [The Diary of Mikki the Fox Terrier]. Paris: printed by the author, 1927. Folio. 52 pp. Original decorated wrappers. Wrappers restored and rebacked. LIMITED EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY. No 151 of 200 signed copies. This copy inscribed "From frivolous Mikki the Fox Terrier with warm memories to Yakov Pavlovich Kremizion. S--a. Chorny. April 1927." Sasha Chorny was one of the most important Russian satirists of the early twentieth century. Although best known for his work during his exile, he made a name for himself in St. Petersburg during the twilight of the Tsars. His family was Jewish and his parents got around the prejudices of the day by having their son baptized. His barbed nonsense verses in Zritel got the magazine shut down by the censors, but his contributions to Satirikon were the journal's most popular feature. Vladimir Mayakovsky was a big fan of his work. Chorny emigrated after the Bolshevik Revolution and eventually settled in Paris where he entertained the White Russian community with his witty prose and poetry for both children and adults. Dnevnik foksa Mikki is an amusing fictitious diary of Chorny's own fox terrier. Chorny died of a heart-attack after helping during fire in the house of a neighbor of his in the South of France. Legend has it that his terrier Mikki laid on his chest while this was happening, and died with him. F. Rojankovsky is best known as the illustrator of Golden Books and as the 1956 Caldecott Medal winner. The Latvian-born artist was a prolific contributor to adult and juvenile publications in Paris just prior to his emigrating to the United States in 1941.