Eugene Zamiatin. We. First edition, in the rare dustwrapper
Zamiatin, Eugene [Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin] (1884-1937). We. New York: Dutton, 1924. First edition. xiv, 286 p.; 20 cm. A very good copy in black cloth, in the dustwrapper, which has had two chips professionally restored, one at the top center front panel, the other at the heel of the spine. Housed in a custom clamshell case.
The first edition in any language of this satirical classic of dystopian literature, which draws on expressionist aesthetic theory and Jungian psychology. Written in 1921, We has the distinction of being the first work to be banned by the Soviet censorship board. Although a tamizdat edition of the Russian text was published in New York in 1952, the text was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988.
As the critic Clarence Brown has noted, We is Zamiatin’s masterpiece: “It is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-utopia; a great prose poem on the fate that might befall all of us if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom.” The translations of We published outside of the Soviet Union earned Zamyatin the enmity of the Soviet leadership. With Maxim Gorky's support, Zamyatin successfully petitioned Stalin for permission to emigrate. In 1931, he moved to Paris, where he died in poverty. Although he published a few other works – including the libretto for Shostakovitch’s The Nose and the screenplay for Jean Renoir's Les Bas-Fonds – none approached the significance of We, which inspired the dystopian works of Aldous Huxley, George, Orwell, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ursula K. LeGuin.
Although he completed the book in 1920 or 1921, it was not until 1924 that We found its way into print. Recognizing the impossibility of having We published in Russia, Zamiatin smuggled the manuscript to the firm of E. P. Dutton, with the help of friends. Dutton arranged for a translation by Gregory Zilboorg (1890-1959), then a medical student at Columbia University who had already published an English version of a novel by Leonid Andreyev. Zilboorg’s translation is therefore the editio princeps, and it became the primary vehicle for introducing Zamiatin’s work to Western audiences. The early editions published in Czechoslovakia (1927) and France (1929) were translated not from the Russian but the English. As Ilya Ehrenburg noted in a letter he wrote Zamiatin from Paris, “the English translation is indispensable (the publishers don’t know Russian and everyone here reads English).”
(Zilboorg himself later became a figure of note, writing several works on the history of psychology, and treating a number of celebrities, including George Gershwin and Lillian Hellman; the musical Lady in the Dark is reportedly based on Moss Hart's experience undergoing analysis with Zilboorg.)
A cryptic inscription, unsigned, adorns the flyleaf: “To Marie – / In memory of the brain-child. / March 1925.” The dustwrapper, executed in the "Cubo-Futuristic" style of Kazimir Malevich and Aleksandra Ekster, is impossibly rare, and does not appear to be represented in institutional or private collections. Leading specialists in genre fiction have told us that they have never seen another copy. An exceptional example of an influential classic of speculative literature.
Product tabs
$0
$18,500
Earn 0Reward points
Recommend this product

Eugene Zamiatin. We. First edition, in the rare dustwrapper
Related products
Richard Wright. Black Boy (1945). Signed
WRIGHT, Richard (1908-1960). Black Boy: A record of childhood and youth. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1945. Early edition. Very good in dustwrapper....
view details
$750
View details
$2,750
E. E. "Doc" Smith, Vortex Blaster, inscribed
Smith, Edward E. "Doc" (1890–1965). The Vortex Blaster. Reading: Fantasy Press, 1960. Fine in a very good dustwrapper with a nick to the top gutter.In...
view details
$2,750
View details
$1,500
Ian Rankin. Knots and Crosses. First edition. Signed.
Rankin, Ian (b. 1960). Knots and Crosses. Garden City, N.Y, Doubleday & Company, 1987. First US edition. A very fine copy in dustwrapper.Signed by...
view details
$1,500
View details
$1,750
Izaak Walton. Lives (1670), with holograph corrections & a distinguished provenance
Walton, Izaak (1593-1683). The lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr Richard Hooker, Mr George Herbert: To which are added some letters writte...
view details
$1,750
View details
$225
Daniel Defoe. Christmas Frolics on the Island of Despair (1868)
[DEFOE, Daniel]. Henry J. BYRON, Playbill for Robinson Crusoe; or, Friday and the fairies. Theatre Royal, Covent Garden [December 26th, 1868]. [London...
view details
$225
View details
$2,000
Giorgio DE CHIRICO, Hebdomeros (1929), signed, in the rare dustwrapper.
de Chirico, Giorgio. Hebdomeros. Paris: Editions du Carrefour. Collection Bifur, 1929. First edition. 19 cm; 252 p, [1] leaf. One of 2500 numbered cop...
view details
$2,000
View details
$750
I. J. SINGER. The Sinner / Yoshe Kalb (1933). First edition
Singer, I. J. (Israel Joshua). The Sinner (Yoshe Kalb). New York: Liveright, 1933. First edition. Very good in a well-preserved example of the rare du...
view details
$750
View details
$500
Lord DUNSANY. The Gods of Pegana (1916). First American edition
Dunsany, Lord. Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (1878-1957). The Gods of Pegana. Boston: John Luce, 1916. First American edition. A near fine copy.Bo...
view details
$500
View details
Jonathan Swift, Contests and dissentions (Boston 1728): The first Irish book published in America
$25,000
$25,000
Jonathan Swift, Contests and dissentions (Boston 1728): The first Irish book published in America
Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745). A discourse of the contests and dissentions between the nobles and the commons in Athens and Rome : with the consequences...
view details
$25,000
View details
$850
The script for a French opéra comique, adapted for the provincial stage
Étienne, Charles-Guillaume (1778 – 1845). Une heure de marriage: comédie en un acte, mêlée de chants. Paris: Chez Madame Masson, Libraire, An XII (18...
view details
$850
View details
Lord Dunsany. The Book of Wonder: a Chronicle of Little Adventures at the Edge of the World (1913)
$250
$250
Lord Dunsany. The Book of Wonder: a Chronicle of Little Adventures at the Edge of the World (1913)
Dunsany, Lord. Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (1878-1957). The The Book of Wonder: a Chronicle of Little Adventures at the Edge of the World. Bosto...
view details
$250
View details
$750
Richard Matheson. The Shrinking Man (1973). First hardcover edition.
Matheson, Richard (1926-2013). The Shrinking Man. London: David Bruce & Watson, 1973. First hardcover edition. A fine, unread copy in a crisp dust...
view details
$750
View details
$3,250
W. Heath Robinson. Bill the Minder. His magnum opus. Signed, limited edition, in vellum
Robinson, W. Heath (1872-1944). Bill the Minder. London: Constable & Co. Ltd, 1912. First edition. Large 4to. Bound in publisher's full white vell...
view details
$3,250
View details
$750
Frank Waters, Fever Pitch (1930). The Native American author's first book.
Waters, Frank (1902-1995). Fever Pitch. New York: Horace Liveright, 1930. First edition. 19.5 cm.; 233pp. Very good in silver-stamped orange and blue ...
view details
$750
View details
$25,000
Manuscript Archive for Atomsk, a Cold War novel by intelligence operative Paul Linebarger
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony (1913 - 1966). Atomsk: A Novel of Suspense by "Carmichael Smith." Original manuscript archive for the novel published p...
view details
$25,000
View details
$125
George R. R. Martin. Quartet (2001), signed. The first foray into Westeros
Martin, George R. R. Quartet: Four Tales from the Crossroads. Illustrated by Charles Vess. Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2001. One of 1200 copies. A fi...
view details
$125
View details
$225
Daniel Defoe. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. An unrecorded early American edition (ca. 1835)
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Hartford: Andrus and Judd, ca. 1832-1835. 2 volumes., pp. 313, 293. 13.8 cm. Frontispiece a...
view details
$225
View details
$1,500
F. Scott FITZGERALD. The Princeton Bric-A-Brac (1915). His "country club."
FITZGERALD, F. Scott (1896-1940)]. The Princeton Bric-A-Brac, Volume XLI. Philadelphia: E.A. Wright Bank Note Co., 1915. First edition. Gilt embossed ...
view details
$1,500
View details