Beschreibung:

GONCHAROV, Ivan Aleksandrovich (1812-1891). Obyknovennaia istoriia. [A Common Story.] St Petersburg: Glazunov, 1883. Exceptional copy, inscribed by the author and once owned by Tsar Alexander II, of the fifth and definitive edition. It was the last to be published during the author’s lifetime and bearing significant authorial changes, both substantial and stylistic (unlike the early re-issues which only contained minor changes). A Common Story , Goncharov’s debut novel when it was first published in instalments in 1847, is considered one of the first genuinely realistic Russian novels. Belinsky praised it as 'an important blow in the battle of the Natural School against Romanticism'; he also appreciated it for the simple pleasure of it: 'reading [it] is like eating cool watermelon on a hot summer day'. Dostoevsky, in a letter to his brother dated 1 April 1846, acknowledged Goncharov as one of his 'most remarkable rivals' – before Goncharov even had been published, based on a public reading of the manuscript at Belinsky's. Kilgour 356 (first edn); Smirnov-Sokol'skii, 626 (first edn). Two parts in one volume, octavo (216 x 138mm). With the half-title (age browning, half-title and title reinforced at gutter, very minor mainly marginal spotting). 19th-century navy blue Russia, patterned endpapers, boards, spine and inner edges gilt, gilt-lettered (spine sunned); preserved in a modern folding box. Provenance : author’s presentation to M. M. Stasyulevich, 'a friendly offering' dated 1884 (front endleaf) - Tsar Alexander II (bookplate) - A.B. Leont’ev-Istomin (20th century, bookplate).