Description
The first English language edition of The Kingdom of God is Within You by Count Leo Tolstoi.
Octavo, viii, 376pp, [16pp ads]. Blue hardcover, title in gilt on front cover and spine. No additional printings listed on copyright page. Light wear to cloth, rubbed corners, fraying to top edge of spine. Front two signatures slightly loose, otherwise solid text block. An ex-library copy, with bookplate dated 1937 on front endpaper and checkout slip on rear free endpaper.
A very good example.
In 1894, two translations of The Kingdom of God Is Within You were published in London: a two-volume edition by William Heinemann and a single-volume edition by Walter Scott publishing. William Heinemann attempted to stop the publication by Walter Scott, announcing that he was the only authorized publisher of the book in Great Britain, which was not completely true. In subsequent letters, Tolstoy mentioned that the translation by Constance Garnett was his preferred edition. (Galina Alekseeva, “Constance Garnett’s Translation…,” in Literary Translation, Reception, and Transfer, 2020) In Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, he mentions that this work by Tolstoy converted him to the theory of nonviolence, not on the basis of his Hindu ideology but on the ideas of the New Testament. (Pandiri, 1991)
