THIS PUBLICATION

This is the first-ever publication of a facsimile edition of The Complete Working Notebooks of Alexander Pushkin - Russia's greatest poet and the equivalent in Russian culture of Shakespeare, Dante or Goethe. It anticipated the bicentenary of the poet's birth in 1999.

The 18 working notebooks hold the key to Pushkin's genius. They contain drafts and re-workings of the poet's greatest works. Their pages are scattered with Pushkin's own sketches of his heroines, friends and enemies, and his doodled self-portraits; the creative work is interrupted with obsessively noted detail of his personal life.

This unique publication is a joint venture of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskii Dom) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St Petersburg Partnership Consortium. The St Petersburg Partnership Initiative was organised in 1993 with the encouragement of HRH The Prince of Wales and in collaboration with St Petersburg's late Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, to attract international support and expertise to the regeneration of the great former capital.

Any profits generated by the publication are placed in a Joint Trust, to be used in the interests of upgrading storage and conservation conditions for manuscripts at Pushkinskii Dom. This project of the St Petersburg Partnership Initiative is part of a wider programme to help the cultural institutions of St Petersburg benefit from the rational exploitation of their collections and to share with them the development expertise of international institutions and cultural entrepreneurs.

THE FACSIMILE EDITION

The Facsimile Edition is presented in a set of eight volumes. Designed to be works for study as well as collectors' items, each volume is 350 x 240mm. All volumes are bound portrait with the exception of Volume Five, which is bound landscape but presented in a portrait slipcase matching the other bindings. Each page is reproduced as a colour plate (in all, over 2400) and each volume includes photographs of the original working notebooks and brief details. In many of the books there are blank pages. These are only reproduced where they occur as the verso of a page of text.

INTRODUCTORY VOLUME

Complementary to the seven volumes of working notebooks is an introductory volume. The introduction to this facsimile edition, in Russian and English, is by the late Academician D.S. Likhachev and Professor S.A. Fomichev, respectively then, Chairman and Academic Secretary of the Pushkin Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This is followed by explanatory notes in Russian, which provide a page-by-page description of the handwritten texts. The notes are the result of many years of research by experts at Pushkinskii Dom. For non-Russian speakers, a supplement is provided, pointing to the location in the working notebooks of manuscripts of major Pushkin works and identifying the subjects of a range of the poet's sketches.

500 COPIES

The Facsimile Edition of the 18 working notebooks of A. S. Pushkin is of immense interest and importance not only to the people of the Russian Federation but also to the scholarly community throughout the world.

By special agreement with the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a limited edition of 500 sets has been made available for sale outside the former Soviet Union. These sets, which are numbered, are distributed on a first come, first served basis.

PRODUCTION

The nature and importance of the working notebooks required them to be photographed in situ. This work has been carried out by Ian B. Jones, Fine Art Photographer, producing colour plates from which the working notebooks have been reproduced.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Original photography By I. B. Jones, London.

Each page reproduced in full colour on
130 gsm Fineblade smooth
250 tpi
3500 micron Boards

Bound in Oxford Library Buckram Headbands
Dust jacket with French folds
Leather-bound copies in Grade 1 Goatskin
leather with silk endpapers, raised bands.