Anti-Climax, The": the concluding chapter of My Russian Diary "The Bolshevik Myth.
To Peggy From Sasha:
A Gift To Margaret Sanger From Alexander Berkman
[Sanger, Margaret]. Berkman, Alexander. The “Anti-Climax” the Concluding Chapter of My Russian Diary “The Bolshevik Myth.” (Berlin: Privately Printed, 1925).
8vo.; pages bright; bookplate; publisher’s ads for various Emma Goldman texts; blue cloth; spine and covers worn, faded; a sound copy of a fragile volume. In a specially made cloth folding box.
A remarkable copy of a key text by Berkman, about one of the most vexing problems confronting modern reformers: how to interpret, and live with, the after-effects of the Russian Revolution. The first and only edition of this privately printed supplement to Berkman’s The Bolshevik Myth (NY: Boni & Liveright, 1925), The Anti-Climax includes material suppressed by Liveright for the New York edition; Berkman explains the discrepancy between the editions:
Mr. Liveright rejected [my work] as an ‘anti-climax’ from a literary standpoint and insisted on leaving it out. Anxious to place my book before the public, I consented. But much as I am interested in literature, I consider the Russian Revolution and its lessons far more important than the finest writing. The more vital is the elucidation of the causes that led to the debacle of the Revolution...I have therefore published the present brochure, for the reader’s better understanding of the ‘Bolshevik Myth’ and—in justice to myself. (p. 3)
A highly significant presentation copy, tenderly inscribed by Berkman, Emma Goldman’s longtime lover and collaborator, to Margaret Sanger, the architect of the American pro-choice movement: To my dear Peggy, in memory of auld lang syne. Sasha. From Margaret Sanger’s library, with her bookplate on the front pastedown.
The presence of this volume in Sanger’s library is especially intriguing in light of Sanger’s violent break with Goldman nearly a decade before its publication.
(#4843)
Print Inquire
