ROAD TO THE OCEAN

New York: L.B. Fischer, 1944. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Good. The first edition in English, translated from the Russian by Norbert Guterman. A fantasy about the Soviet future in which the hero, "another embodiment of Leonov, meditates on the suffering he has caused and endured and tries to answer the question whether it was worth while in the total economy of history" (Edward James Brown, Russian Literature Since the Revolution). Leonov (1899-1994) was a Soviet novelist and playwright of socialist realism whose works have been compared with Dostoevsky's deep psychological torment. Octavo: vi, [2], 510 pp. Original gray cloth binding, with blue-stamped (truncated) titles. Light bump to the spine heel. The dust jacket is toned along the spine and a bit edgeworn, with a few old tape reinforcements to the verso; else about very good. (Inventory #: 78503)