1969: Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, International Collectors Library, Garden City, New York. 563 pages
New. Unread. Collectible.
Minor bent on top cover corner (pictured). Deckled fore-edges. Includes the original inlay from ICL with presentation of the work and its binding.
During the time covered by the novel – 1903 to 1943 – Dr. Zhivago strives to preserve his own spiritual integrity and optimistic humanity. But the times are not tolerant. A great, ever-widening crack divides Russia – class from class, parent from child, husband from wife, lover from mistress, and ultimately, man from himself. This is social and moral dilemma that Pasternak grapples with so convincingly and brilliantly in Doctor Zhivago.
Doctor Zhivago is part of Classical Russian Novels series of the International Collectors Library.
Executed by the distinguished American artist Rafael Palacios, the binding of the volume is a re-creation of the design found on a rare old volume in the library of Czar Alexander II (1818-1881), a ruler who abolished serfdom in Russia. The original binding was in green Morocco and encased a volume in Russian titled Biographies of Famous Generals, by Dmitri N. Bantysh-Kamensky.
The present Doctor Zhivago volume is a close replica, bound in wine red, beautifully stamped in handsome gilt foil. It bears a series of bold, flowing spirals accentuated within by a single fillet forming the same design, all within a border of a single fillet with a flowered design in each corner. The spine carries curved wreaths of leaves and small flowers of French design. And as befits a fine collector’s volume, there is a matching ribbon marker bound in it.
