Russian Literature [spine title: "Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature."] Author's Presentation Copy, Inscribed to Isaak Vladimirovich Shklovsky

London: Duckworth, 1905. First Edition. First impression. Inscribed by Kropotkin in Russian, on the front endpaper, to fellow revolutionary and prominent Anglo-Russian journalist Isaak Vladimirovich Shklovsky, "..with fraternal greetings," signed, dated August, 1905. Octavo. Deep red cloth; gilt spine titles; top edge gilt; xii, [1]-341pp. Externally rubbed and worn, with some loss of gilt on spine; bookplate of the Lyceum Club of Piccadilly to front pastedown, with stamp of same to title page at bottom edge of text block; partial split rear endpapers at hinge; else Good and sound.

A notable association copy with equally notable provenance. The recipient, I.V. Shklovsky (who wrote under the pen name "Dioneo") was an exiled Russian revolutionary who, like Kropotkin, made his home in England after escaping prison in Siberia (Kropotkin beginning in 1886; Shklovsky a decade later). Though we can locate no English-language documentary record of Shklovsky's and Kropotkin's friendship, it is safe to assume that as fellow revolutionaries and members of London's Russian exile community the two were well known to one another. While Kropotkin's autograph is not notably rare, personally inscribed copies of his books, especially those with association value, are infrequently seen.

This copy from the library of the Lyceum Club of Piccadilly - the organization's charter location, founded by Constance Smedley in 1904. The Lyceum Club, founded expressly for the use of women from London's professional and arts communities, became a hotbed of feminist progressivism, led not only by Smedley herself but also such charter members as Millicent Fawcett, Frances Balfour, and Enid Moberly Bell. The Club's attractive bookplate, depicting a rugged yawl in rough seas, crewed entirely by women, is signed in the block by the London illustrator Marion [aka Marian] Dawson. Though the Lyceum Club movement lives on, with affiliates in eighteen countries, the Piccadilly branch went bankrupt in 1933, at which point we presume its library was dispersed.