Unique editions of Pushkin, Gogol and Mandelstam are on auction in London

Flickr / JC

A whole collection of book rarities with rare Russian publications and manuscripts has come up for Christie's auction, reports TASS. The lawyer from the United States, Robert Eden Martin owns the works. According to Christie's, the collection includes almost 230 books and manuscripts, most of them are dated between the beginning of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century.

One of the most interesting lots will be Stone, an Osip Mandelstam’s poem, with a dedication to the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov. His preliminary price reaches 116 000 dollars.

Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka also went up for auction. A copy of the first edition is estimated at 90 000 dollars. Bibliophiles will be offered the first separate edition of the first chapter of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin novel estimated at 45 000 dollars.

Christie's assures that such collection can be called a unique phenomenon on the market. According to the experts, there are not a similar collections in America.

Robert Eden Martin spent his whole life in Chicago. At the age of 16 he began to learn Russian actively. This led him to collect Russian literature.

The book auction will take place simultaneously with the Russian Week - the week of Russian art trading. The auction will take place on November 28 in London.

Russkiy Mir