First appearance in print of one of the greatest and most revered novels of all time.
 
Anna Karenina in Russkiy Vestnik(The Russian Herald) 
Leo Tolstoy
Moscow, 1875-77
 
The iconic novel was serialized in 13 installments starting in January 1875. This copy was created by a devoted reader who removed all the parts containing the story from all 13 issues of the journal and bound them into this single volume. Contemporary half-morocco, rebacked preserving the original gilt spine[owner name also in gilt at the bottom in Polish(?)]. New endpapers. Sporadic ink marks throughout with heavier ones on the first and last few leaves, some general staining and rubbing, some water stains mainly on the later pages. Sections of text not from Anna Karenina are covered in paper. Overall, Very Good and a crazy survival. Housed in a splendid, red half-morocco box with gilt tooled spine. Issues that contained Anna: 1875: January - April 1876: January - April & December 1877: January - April Collation: pp. [243]-336, [1], [742]-817, [2], [246]-316, [1], [572]- 641, [1], [305]-390, [679]-745, [1], [291]-339, [1], [641]-693, [1], [687]-737, [1], [267]-324, [1], [830]-898, [329]-382, [709]- 763, [1]. [448]-460.
 
Due to a political disagreement between Tolstoy and the conservative journal's publisher, Mikhail Katkov, the last part of the story was never printed. Even the excerpt from the May 1877 issue containing the editor’s notes on the non-publication of Part VIII is loosely laid in at the rear of the book – another testament to this compiler’s comprehensive dedication to amassing any relevant parts of Anna. “While Tolstoy was writing the Epilogue(Part VIII), news came of the uprising of the Serbs and Montenegrins against the Turks, and in April 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey. By then Tolstoy had expressed through Levin pacifist views of the kind for which he was in later years to become internationally famous. Katkov demanded revision of the now unpatriotic passages; Tolstoy refused to compromise…As he had forseen, he was denounced for his lack of patriotic feeling- by Dostoevsky, amongst others.”(Thorlby, Tolstoy: Anna Karenina) A book edition with the final part was published in 1878 and it’s fairly obtainable on the market, but this true first printing is a unicorn. I cannot find any other examples of this complete first appearance in any records. A remarkable literary artifact.