Description
First English edition of The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett.
Small octavo, [two volumes], xiii, [3], 261pp; [6], 266pp. Green cloth, title in gilt on spine, facsimile signature in gilt on front covers. Publisher’s note that this version was “made directly from Russian advance sheets sold to me by the publishers of the Russian original.” Hinges in both volumes starting, text blocks still solid. Offsetting to half-title of Volume I due to newspaper clipping. Light rubbing to corners and edges, small mark to front cover of Volume II. Both bright, near fine examples.
In 1894, two translations of The Kingdom of God Is Within You were published in London, this two-volume edition by William Heinemann and another 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)
