First-Edition Copy of Pasternak’s Translation of Hamlet

A rare copy of the first edition of Boris Pasternak’s famous Russian translation of Shakespeare’s classic. When, in the early 1930’s, socialist realism was first established and enforced as the only officially sanctioned mode of narration and representation in literature, Pasternak withdrew from the sphere of contemporary literary authors and turned his hand to translation. He would produce translations of Goethe, Schiller, Keats, Shelley, Verlaine and several works by Shakespeare. His translation of Hamlet was widely celebrated and has in some sense become a Russian literary classic. It was published in 1941, several years into Pasternak’s silence as a poet and 15 years before his largely autobiographical novel Dr. Zhivago was first published by the Italian communist publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

Purchased by the English and American Literature fund
Held in the division of Rare Books and Special Collections.
One of 4 copies listed in North American libraries.