Prague: F. Svoboda, 1921–1922. Small quartos (28 × 18.5 cm). Original printed wrappers; 144 pp (consecutive pagination). Numerous illustrations, some full-page. Overall very good; a few nicks to the fragile wrappers of issue one; only the special issue with some fraying and tears to wrappers.

Rare Czech modernist and avant-garde periodical, rarely seen in the trade and apparently largely unknown to scholars of the period. Most contains original verse by Josef Bartuška, Adolf Hoffmeister, Rudolf Medek, Jaroslav Seifert, Antonín Sova, Karel Toman, Jiří Wolker and others, and translations of Apollinaire, Konstantin Balmont, Ivan Bunin, G. K. Chesterton, Edward Shanks, and a whole range of Georgian poets, Sergei Esenin, John Keats, Sergei Makovskii, Siegfried Sasoon, Igor Severianin, Emile Verhaeren. With prose by Adolf Hoffmeister, Artuš Černík, Josef Kopta, Rudolf Medek, M. Pujmanová-Hennerová, Emil Vachek, and Frank Wenig, and translations of prose by O. Henry, Maksim Gorky, G. K. Chesterton, Remizov, and Teffi. Notably, it also contains the first appearance of Karel Teige’s article on modern Czech painting and sculpture, which does not appear to have been republished ("Moderní české malířství a plastika"), as well as Jan Rambousek’s polemical reply in the double issue 10–11. With reproductions of art by Jan Rambousek, Adolf Hoffmeister, Jan Zrzavý, and Karel Votlučka. Also contains an early publication by Josef Bartuška, who would go on to found the Linie Group in the 1930s. Of great interest is the section “Rozhledy,” featuring shorter cultural and literary news and reviews, and the results of a literary questionnaire in no. 10–11 that include answers by Karel Čapek, Antonín Macek, and F. X. Šalda. The double issue 5–6 is billed as the “Russian issue” and contains a specially written article by the critic Evgenii Liatskii. With a final special issue that recapitulates the answers of the questionnaire by numerous writers. As of January 2020, KVK and OCLC show holdings at Freiburg, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and Indiana. The Czech National Library mentions a second year, but only holds copies 1–12 of vol. I.

Book ID: 50504

Price: $1,250.00