Mandelstam, Osip.

4to (277 x 220mm.), [limited to 8000 copies], coloured lithographed illustrations by V. Isenberg, original pictorial wrappers, soiled, some ink markings, wrappers worn and chipped at edges

Exhibited in Shili-Byli, Russian Children's Books 1920-1940, MAK, Vienna, October 2004-February 2005

Shili Byli p. 21; The Russian Avant-Garde Book 643

extremely rare. During the 1920s Osip Mandelstam and his wife Nadezhda lost their home and lived in the kitchens of friends. He supported himself by writing books for children, in which humour and nonsense could still be written. For Mandelstam, children's books were not only a way of earning a living, but also a way of living itself. This is Osip Mandelstam's most important children's book, in which he avoids anything serious or grown-up: there are no adults and the story is set in a kitchen on a summer's day. For Mandelstam "the kitchen had become the nucleus of everything that was private and good".