Collins, Wilkie [Poor Miss Finch]. Bednaia Miss Finch.

Collins, Wilkie  [Poor Miss Finch]. Bednaia Miss Finch. 

S.-Peterburg, E.N. Akhmatova, 1871. 

8vo, 3-482 pp. In modern half leather, spine lettered in gilt. Loss of the half-title.

In good condition, very lightly rubbed to corners, foxing and toning, dampstaining around edges.                             

Very rare. One of the two earliest Russian translations, both published in the same year. First edition of this translation. 

The first Russian translation of Wilkie Collins’s novel Poor Miss Finch appeared in 1871 in two versions—this one and another published in Moscow as a supplement to the journal Russkii Vestnik—both anonymously.

Although the translator is not credited in this edition, it is likely the work of Elizaveta Akhmatova (1820–1904), a prominent writer, publisher, and translator. Akhmatova published the monthly serial Sobranie Inostrannykh Romanov, Povestei i Rasskazov (‘Collection of Foreign Novels, Stories, and Short Stories’) from 1856 to 1885, which introduced Russian readers to the first translations of works by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Interestingly, the first book edition of Poor Miss Finch was published in 1872. This suggests that the Russian translations were based on the serialized versions of the novel, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly (September 2, 1871 – February 24, 1872) and Cassell’s Magazine (October 1871 – March 1872). It is possible that Russian publishers chose to date the translation 1871, even though the story’s conclusion had not yet been published at that time.

We couldn’t trace any copy of this edition in the USA or European libraries via OCLC.