PUSHKIN, Aleksandr Sergeevich.

Poëmes dramatiques d'Alexandre Pouchkine traduits du russe par Ivan Tourguéneff et Louis Viardot.

Paris, Hachette, 1862. 8vo, pp. [iv], 279, + 1 leaf table of contents and a final colophon leaf; some minor browning to edges, but a very good copy in contemporary half red morocco, spine lettered gilt, gilt bands on spine, marbled paper boards; bookplate of the ‘Sanatorium du Clergé de France’ (fonds Remy Canet) to front endleaf. First edition of Turgenev’s translations of five works by Pushkin into French. The collection includes an important Preface, and translations of Boris Godunov, the Little Tragedies (‘The Covetous Knight’, ‘Mozart and Salieri’, and ‘The Stone Guest’) and Rusalka, each with commentary; as Viardot did not know Russian, his contribution was as stylistic editor. In December 1860 Turgenev had delivered two public lectures on Pushkin in St Petersburg: unpublished, they were used in preparation of the Preface here, which was ‘signed by both translators … but probably written by Turgenev alone’ (Izmailov). ‘In his years abroad Turgenev was one of the most active and tireless propagandists for Pushkin among the writers of western Europe’ (Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XV, 333), and during 1860–1 he corresponded with Mérimée, who suggested French equivalents for several passages. Poëmes dramatiques was the first of Turgenev’s translations of Pushkin to be published under his name, and helped to cement Pushkin’s reputation abroad, arousing a wide critical response in both France and Russia; though extremely successful, it was, suprisingly, not reprinted. Mezhov, Puschkiniana, 3387. See N. V. Izmailov, ‘I. S. Turgenev – perevodchik Pushkina na frantsuzskii iazyk’, Pushkin: issledovaniia i materiali, 1974, VII, 185–203).

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