Kruchenykh, Aleksei.

8vo (190 x 133mm.), [limited to 5000 copies], illustrations by Valentina Kulagina, original wrappers, slightly browned, wrapper repaired with some loss at corners 

Hellyer 231 (facsimile, 1989); The Russian Avant-Garde Book 64; Compton (1992), pp. 58 and 154

Sergei Esenin was an independent "Ruralist" poet and his first collection of poems was published in 1916. Esenin joined the Imagists who initially supported the Revolution, seeing themselves as being on the Left of the Futurists. Esenin had a turbulent and much-publicised marriage with Isadora Duncan, touring the West with her in 1922. However, finding Russian society so radically altered after his solitary return to Russia in 1925, he descended into alcoholism and committed suicide after writing a poem to this effect in his own blood. This act shocked many and became the catalyst for numerous books, of which Kruchenykh wrote six.