SOLZHENITSYN ALEKSANDR: (1918-2008) Russian writer and prominent Soviet dissident, Nobel Prize ...

SOLZHENITSYN ALEKSANDR: (1918-2008) Russian writer and prominent Soviet dissident, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, 1970. An unusual book signed and inscribed, being a softcover edition of The Oak and the Calf - Sketches of Literary Life in the Soviet Union, second revised and expanded edition, published by Soglasie, Moscow, 1996. Signed and inscribed by Solzhenitsyn in Cyrillic to the title page, 'To dear Mira Gennadievna Petrova, the unforgettable "invisible" one, A. Solzhenitsyn' and dated 9th July 1996 in his hand. With a further note by Petrova at the head of the title page requesting a transfer to the manuscript department of the IMLI (i.e. the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences). With numerous pencil and ink annotations throughout to the margins. An interesting presentation copy. Lacking the spine and endpapers and with some extensive tears and areas of paper loss to the title page, only very slightly affecting the inscription but not the signature. Accompanied by the dust jacket (some minor faults). Only FR

The second, expanded edition of the Russian text to Solzhenitsyn's memoir The Oak and the Calf included new material on the people who helped the writer in his literary tasks prior to his exile. Solzhenitsyn had previously called these anonymous helpers Nevidimki (the invisible ones) and Petrova, to whom the present book is inscribed, was one such helper. Indeed, Solzhenitsyn wrote of Petrova that 'she was so talented in literary perception that she replaced immediately 10-20 other readers for me - an invaluable quality for an underground writer......she occupied such a special position - apart from all my conspiracy she preserved a separate sacred territory for me, where I was not a conspirator, but a pure writer'.