King Richard II. One of the earliest Russian verse translations of the play.

[Shakespeare, William] [King Richard II: A Dramatic Chronicle / In The Contemporary: A Literary and Political Journal]. Korol' Richard II: Dramaticheskaia khronika / Sovremennik: Zhurnal literaturnyi i politicheskii. Vol. CVIII, No V, May 1865. 

[Translation by A. Sokolovskii].

SanktPeterburg, v tipografii Karla Vulfa, 1865.
8vo, 532, 304, 3, [1] pp.

In contemporary half leather, spine lettered in gilt. Original wrappers preserved.
In good condition, rubbed, joint splitting, corners a little bumped, pencil marks to title and some pages, owner stamp ‘Iz knig A.V. Kokoreva’.

First publication of this translation.

The first complete Russian translation of Shakespeare’s 'Richard II' was made by Nikolai Ketcher and published in 1841 as part of a collection titled 'Dramaticheskie Sochineniia' ('Dramatic Works'), which also included 'King John' and both parts of 'Henry IV'.
This new translation in verse—one of the earliest Russian verse translations of the play—was prepared by Aleksandr Sokolovskii (1837–1915), a translator and publisher. Beginning in the 1860s, Sokolovskii undertook the ambitious task of translating the complete works of Shakespeare, which he eventually compiled and published in an eight-volume edition between 1894 and 1898. For this monumental achievement, he was awarded the Pushkin Prize in 1901—the highest literary honor in pre-revolutionary Russia.
In 1865, another translation of 'Richard II' appeared, prepared by Vsevolod Kostomarov and published in the collection 'Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii Vil’iama Shekspira v Russkom Perevode' ('The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in Russian Translation').
This particular copy comes from the private library of Aleksandr Kokorev (1883–1965), a philologist, professor at Moscow University, and distinguished collector.

We couldn’t trace any copy of this edition via OCLC. The Smithsonian Library has photocopy of this edition only.