Erotopaegnia

Moscow: Al'tsiona, 1917. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good+. Decorative paper boards, backed in vellum, lettering stamped in red on spine; 4to; pp. [47], with parallel Russian and Latin text. Covers were once off and have been carefully mounted; vellum faintly spotted; some light scuffing along edges of boards.

"On the rights of manuscript. Not for sale" is printed in Russian on the half-title. Only 305 copies were printed, tho this copy is unnumbered. A cameo illustration enclosed in a circle was intended to head each poem, tho this copy (truncated) has only empty circles, with two Xerox copies enclosed as samples. Also, in the facsimile, the illustrations are closed within triple-ring circles, but this copy has only one circle. This is perhaps a pre-publication copy, from the library of Alex Flegon, who published a facsimile, with a fictitious imprint, in the 1980s. It is described in Hollis thus: "Subtitle on added t.p,: Eroticheski stikhi antichnykh poetov v perevodakh Valerii..." and "46 p., ill., 29 cm. Facsimile reprint of the 1917 ed. Imprint on t.p.: Moskva: Knigoizdatel..." This copy bears NONE of that text, and the paper is old, so it does not seem to be one of Flegnon's facsimiles -- but it could have been used by Flegon as a copy text for his reprint (there are pencil marks of the sort associated with editing for reprint). But why no illustrations? Is this a censored first edition? Very mysterious, and almost certainly one-of-a-kind. (Inventory #: R12185)