Tragedy by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy (7 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Piece(s) of the spine missing. Due to age and/or environmental conditions, the pages of this book have darkened. Former library book. Ex-Libris and is stamped as such. The hinges have been meanded preserving the original covers and spine. It appears as though this book was completely soaked at one point. This book is severely edgeworn. Heavily shelf worn. Please note the image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item. Ex-Library.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Octavo. Pp.[xiv]294. Tolstoy's wife's diaries having been published, rather to his discredit, his daughter decided to set the record straight with her own version. A very good copy in cloth boards worn at spine ends, and with a faint dampstain to the corner of the first half, not affecting printed area. No jacket.

hard cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. New Haven:Yale University Press. 1933. (xiii)+294pp. Illustrated. Hardcover with dust jacket.  Pale blue boards lightly soiled along top edges and lightly shelfworn, with light wear to spine ends.  Page edges soiled.  Internally end-pages are slightly age-toned but clean, free of previous owenrs marks or signatures.  The binding is tight and hinges intact.  The dust jacket is in very good condition, slightly soiled and shelfworn, with light wear along edges. It is not price clipped.

hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Dustjacket. No Jacket. First Edition. New Haven. 1933. Yale University Press. 1st American Edition. 1 of 1000 copies signed by the author. Very Good. No Dustjacket. Translated from the Russian by Elena Varneck. 294 pages. hardcover. keywords: Europe Russia Literature Translated Autobiography Translated World Literature. DESCRIPTION - FROM THE PREFACE - After my articles (of which this book is in part a translation) were published in Paris in the Russian magazines Sovremenniye Zapiski' and 'Posledniye Novosti', a number of critical articles appeared in the emigre press. Some of them were favorable, others censured me for discussing the relations between my parents. I think that the latter right. I did not want to publish the articles. I was obliged to do it, and I could not possibly avoid speaking about the events that took place in our family. The reason why I had to write everything quite frankly was that the diaries of my mother had been published. During her life she was always afraid that people would accuse her of having been a bad wife, of not participating in father's ideas, of making his life bitter. Trying to justify herself, she involuntarily made accusations against father. Thus, the diary, without being, I am sorry to say, thoroughly reliable, has caused the publication of a number of books and articles unfavorable to him. I felt that it was my duty to tell people what I knew, for I was the only one who stayed with my parents during the last years. If I died, nobody could tell the story. Father himself did not say much about his family life, and my mother carefully scratched out of his diaries everything he wrote about her. The well-known translator of father's works and friend of our family, Aylmer Maude, wrote to me: [Aylmer Maude writes] I am glad your book will be published in America. Since your mother's 'Diary' was published, many reviewers and writers, basing themselves on statements in it, have written in a very denunciatory matter about your father. The fact that he was so scrupulously careful not to speak harshly about your mother renders the available evidence one-sided and many readers are misled! It is therefore very desirable that you, who were the nearest witness of their last years together, should tell the facts of the case even more explicitly, if possible, than you have done in your articles published in Paris. It was, I think, a mistake to publish mother's diaries. It sometimes occurs to me that if she were alive she would never have done it. I often heard her say that she was going to leave a will to the effect that the diaries should not be published until fifty years after her death. There was a great change in mother after father died. She suddenly became a mild, gentle old woman. She sat for hours, dozing in a big armchair, and woke up only when someone mentioned father's name. She would sigh and begin speaking about how sorry she was for having made him suffer. 'I really think I was insane,' she said. After the Revolution, she lost everything, but she never complained. She seemed strangely indifferent to money, luxury, things she liked so much before. She died in 1919 of inflammation of the lungs. My sister Tanya and I took care of her for eleven days. She suffered but was very patient and kind to everybody. When she understood that she was dying, she called my sister and me. 'I want to tell you,' she said, breathing heavily and interrupted by spasms of coughing, 'I know that I was the cause of your father's death. I repented deeply. But I loved him all my life long and I was always a faithful wife to him.' My sister and I could not speak. We were both crying. We knew that mother was telling us the truth. Alexandra Tolstoy. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania January 13, 1933. inventory #4587.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. First Edition. New Haven, 1933; signed by Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of Leo Tolstoy; 1000 of which are signed; rebound in red cloth covered boards; library covers; faded at edges and back strip; no jacket; 8vo, 7 3/4" to 9 3/4" tall; Ex-library with typical stamps and markings; interior is clean and unmarked; 294 pages; Musty odor present; Signed by Author.

Condition: Yale University Press. Signed by author. Several pages have water marks with very light odor. Former owner has written inside. Dust jacket in brodart with edge chips and wear but front and back very nice. Not price clilpped.Hardcover. book.

Cloth. Condition: Very Good. WARMLY INSCRIBED IN YEAR-OF-PUBLICATION BY COUNTESS ALEXANDRA TOLSTOY on the front free endpaper. A solid copy to boot of the 1933 1st UK edition, translated into English from its native Russian by Elena Varneck. Tight and VG in its light-green cloth, with mild soiling to the front panel, light fading along the spine and very mild bowing to the covers. Light foxing to the preliminaries as well and an even cut across the front free endpaper's top-edge, just above Countess Tolstoy's inscription. Octavo, a number of crisp black-and-white photographs complementing the text. Countess Alexandra Tolstoy (1884-1979) was Leo Tolstoy's youngest daughter and his secretary to boot and, as such, was perfectly positioned to write this memoir of the final years of one of the giants of all of Russian literature.