Title: Maxim Gorky and His Russia
Author: Alexander Kaun
Publisher: Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith (New York)
Copyright: 1931 (by the author)
Edition: FIRST
Hardback. WITH dust jacket. (NOTE: The dust jacket for my copy is pictorial, with a profile image of Gorky. Most other copies lack a dust jacket or have a plain non-pictorial jacket.)
620 pages.
About 9.25 inches tall by about 6.25 inches wide
See photos # 6 & 7 for the Table of Contents. (NOTE: This biography was published while Gorky was still living. It ends before the author's permanent return to the Soviet Union, from his exile in Sorrento, Italy, in 1931.)
INTERESTING NOTE: At the bottom of the spine of the dust jacket is the name of the publisher (Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith). But at the bottom of the spine of the book is the name: Robert Ballou. [Compare bottoms of photos # 9 & 10.] Herbert Jonathan Cape was a successful British publisher who launched an American publishing house in 1929. His first partner was Harrison Smith, hence the publisher's full name. Robert O. Ballou, who had been literary editor of the Chicago Daily News was hired as the editor of Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith. At some point, Smith left the firm and Ballou was - in effect - Cape's new partner. (I don't believe that the name of the firm ever changed, however.) The venture was unsuccessful and went bankrupt in 1932. Ballou would eventually become a publisher under his own name. One wonders if he was already entertaining the idea when Maxim Gorky and His Russia was published!
Author Alexander Kaun was born in Russia in 1889. He was a participant in the Revolution of 1905 while a student at the Free University of St. Petersburg. Shortly thereafter, he emigrated to the United States where he taught Hebrew and then matriculated at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1916. He then moved to Berkeley, California, where he completed his graduate degrees in Slavic Languages. He remained at the University of California eventually becoming Chair of the Department. Kaun's career was cut short by his unexpected death from heart failure in 1944.
Please see above for full description of condition and for photos. (The dust jacket, in particular, has significant condition issues.) Sold as is.
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