Books

First edition in English, bound in the original cloth. The set comprises a mixture of issues. Volumes I-II are early issues dated 1887 and without the publisher's imprint on the copyright page; the remaining volumes are first issues with the imprint and dated 1886. Published in three pairs of volumes from January to August 1886, the edition preceded Vizetelly's London edition of October. The translator Clara Bell (n�e Poynter, 1835-1927) was fluent in a remarkable range of European languages, rendering into English the works of Ibsen, Balzac, and Georg Ebers, amongst others, in genres including romance, art, music, travel, and biography. George du Maurier thought her "the cleverest woman of our acquaintance" (p. 202). Although resident in London, she was regularly published in New York by William S. Gottsberger, who had already issued many of her translations to great acclaim. Her two-page postscript at the beginning of the fifth volume comments on her scheme of transliterating Russian names. War and Peace (1865-69) was first translated into a foreign language in Princess Irina Ivanovna Paskevich's French edition of 1879; her second edition of 1884 serves as the basis for Bell's translation. The period saw the first flush of international enthusiasm for previously disregarded Russian novelists. Line-Ettlinger-Gladstone 104. Daphne du Maurier, The Young George du Maurier, 1952. Six vols, small octavo. Original brown cloth, lettering on spines in gilt, eagle motifs on covers in gilt, decorative borders to covers in black, brown endpapers, top edges brown. Publisher's advertisements at rear of vols 1, 2, 4, and 5. Ownership inscription to first blanks of one P. J. Haseltine, and that of Davis Caswell in vol. I; a handful of discrete pencil annotations. Spine ends frayed, slight rubbing and wear, bright bindings with sporadic white marks, damp stains to book block edges, not affecting toned contents, a couple of closed tears to leaves, final volume with discoloured endpapers and cracked inner hinges, remaining sound. A very good set.

War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published serially, then in its entirety in 1869. It is regarded as one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements and remains a classic of world literature. The narrative chronicles the history of the French invasion of Russia through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families and reflects on the philosophical themes of war, peace, and the human condition.