Wonderfully illustrated limited edition of a scarce Pushkin play.

This small play written in 1830 consists of just one scene and was published two years later as part of the Little Tragedies series. It is loosely based on a small excerpt of A City of Plague, written by Scottish author John Wilson two centuries earlier during the time of The Great Plague. In 1830 Pushkin became engaged to Natalia Goncharova, the most talked-about beauty of Moscow. An outbreak of cholera in the city, however, meant that the wedding was delayed and the writer was forced to stay at his estate in Boldino.

It was here in isolation that Pushkin had a fruitful creative spell, finally finishing his novel in verse Eugene Onegin. An avid bibliophile Pushkin was constantly reading and translating works from his vast library. Despite the vast amount of material which he produced, his translation work largely remained unpublished. This play therefore stands out from the rest of his works and displays his unique style whilst maintaining an artistic integrity and unity with the original.