Books of public printing

Books of public printing 

The collection of books of civil press XVIII-XIX centuries is carefully stored at a department of rare and valuable editions. And there are 143 copies of books in Cyrillic which dated up to 1830.


Among them are the following: «The Original and Detailed Description … the Ice House … » by G. Kraft (SPb., 1741) which had been included to the known index of Rare Russian books and volatile editions of XVIII century by Y.Bitovt as a rare book. The book was printed in Russian, French and German languages, but the Russian copy was attributed to the rarest. Thanks to the known Kherson bibliophile M.A. Emelyanov the library obtained this rarity. A part of Emelyanov’s collection is permanently on the library display.
 

 

The first and the last pages of the publication


The pearl of the collection is «The Ancient history about Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians» by S.Rollen, translated by the known Russian poet, academician and interpreter V.Trediakovskiy. The book was published at the Imperial Academy of science in Sent Petersburg in 1753.


The Academy of science took care of creating indispensable operating conditions of authors and interpreters, inclusive to the pens and ink. For example, the file «… about publishing of Rollin’s histories» which is in an archive of the Academy of sciences conference hall the next statement appears: «1745 of February the 5th day, in a magazine of the Academy of sciences office records are written down: to the secretary Tredjakovskiy, for his translation of Rollin’s books a half pound of good food, paper and a bunch of feathers should be given… ». 
 

 

 Our "old residents" are printed on a special paper – dense and light, made on the basis of rags. Therefore they have survived almost without serious consequences not only one historical epoch. Some of them have kept their original leather covers, for example, the first edition of the four-volume «Histories of Small Russia » by D.Bantysh-Kamenskiy the title page of which has engraved portraits of hetmans of Ukraine. This book was published by the author’s own expenses at the Simeon Selivanovskiy's printing house in Moscow in 1822.

Title page

Flyleaf 

Bogdan Khmelnitsky
(1596-1657), the great hetman of Ukraine 

Yuriy Khmelnitsky
(1641-1657), hetman of Ukraine, the younger son of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 

 

Reference:

  • Book of Russia. Part 1. Russian book from the beginning of written language to 1800 /editor - V.А.Adaryukova and А.А.Sidirive. – М.:Gosizdat, 1924. p.217
  • Rare Russian books and volatile editions of XVIII century/ by Y..Bitovt. – М., 1905. p. 169.

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