Description
The first American edition of Slavery and Freedom by Nicolas Berdyaev, in a scarce dust jacket.
Octavo, 271pp, [1]. Publisher’s black cloth, title in gilt on the spine. The first printing, with “Scribner’s A” on the copyright page. Lightly bumped top corner. Previous owner’s name on front free endpaper. In the publisher’s dust jacket, price clipped, but with $3.00 stamp on front flap. Chipping along edges, some loss at heel of the spine, but scarce in any condition.
First published in Russian in 1939 as “O rabstve i svobode cheloveka.” Translated from the Russian by R. M. French, with the first English language edition published in London in 1943.
Nicolas Berdyaev (1874-1948) was a Russian religious philosopher and political thinker. Initially influenced by Marxism, he broke with revolutionary socialism and became a prominent critic of both communism and authoritarianism. Expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922, he settled in France, where he continued to write on Christianity and the spiritual consequences of modern political systems. His best-known works include The Meaning of the Creative Act, The Destiny of Man, The Origin of Russian Communism, Slavery and Freedom, and The Russian Idea.
