“Very rare, most extant copies behind institutional walls,” said Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of a first English language version of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (pictured below).
Translated into English by Constance Garnett, as were so many other Russian classics, and published by Heinemann, it did not appear until 1912 – over 30 years after the story’s first appearance in Russky Viestnik [The Russian Messenger] in 1879-80.
The publisher’s red, blind-stamped cloth binding is far from pristine but it is clean internally and would appear to be only the second copy recorded at auction – the previous one being seen in 1939. It sold for a record $9000 (£7200) in a sale on November 10 last.