Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich (1899 - 199?)	Vor. Moskva-Leningrad, 1928. 539, [2 p.]	€2000

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8vo, original covers. Printed on better paper. VERY GOOD. EXTREMELY RARE. The book was withdrawn from Soviet libraries and banned for sale via book distribution network in the USSR. It became one of the greatest book rarieties, both in the USSR and outside the Soviet Union. ' His dark novel The Thief , set in the criminal underworld of the Russian capital, was warmly welcomed by critics in Russia and abroad, but Brown considers it 'spoiled in execution by the self-conscious literary poses of the author and his transparent derivation of himself from the irrationalist Dostoyevsky. Leonov nonetheless performs a shrewd psychological dissection upon his main character, a disillusioned commissar who has become a member of a gang of thieves. He produced a thoroughly reworked version of this novel in 1959.'-- Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution, p. 101 Some six editions were published in the years up to 1936 [...] All censored.- R.D.B. Thomson. A heavily revised edition of 1959 was considered by many as ' a new book', rather than a version of the original edition. But at that time critics in the USSR were not permitted to publish articles with comparative analysis of different versions, including one printed in 'Krasnaia nov'.' Leonov served the regime well but at one time he was reprimanded by Khrushchev himself for minor liberal statement. Kornei Chukovsky described Leonov as follows in his diary entry for August 21, 1946: 'I've been seeing a lot of Leonid Leonov and admire his splendid character. He's a strong man, well armed for life. He visits once or twice a week and talks nonstop, but never brings up his own plans, projects, or triumphs. The Maly is premiering a play of his tomorrow, say, or he had a book come out yesterday—he'll talk for three hours and never breathe a word of it. Not only is there no hint of the braggart in him, he goes on and on about his failures and defeats. He can do anything with his hands: he makes lampshades, tables, and chairs; he molds faces out of clay; he has fashioned a magnificent cigarette lighter out of bronze—he has all kinds of instruments and tools. Watch the way he handles seeds or berries and you know he's got a green thumb. Simple as he looks, he plays his cards close to the chest. He is well-bred and well-organized, oddly lacking in kindness but a throughbred, and he has a poetic nature. In short, he's a typical Russian.'-- Kornei Chukovsky, Diary, 1901-1969 (Yale University Press, 2005) p. 356. See: Kasack, Wolfgang (1988); Terras, Viktor;James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (Knopf, 1966); The Art of Compromise: The Life and Work of Leonid Leonov [ ...]