Olympia-2015

50. GRIBOEDOV, Aleksandr Sergeevich. Gore ot uma, komediia v chetyrekhdeistviiakh, v stikhakh. Vtoroe polnoe (ispravlennoe) izdanie, Nikolaia Tiblena[Woe from wit. A comedy in four acts, in verse. Second complete (corrected)edition, by Nikolai Tiblen …]. St Petersburg, [N. Tiblen,] 1862.8vo, pp. 97 + 1 page errata; occasional light browning, some light water-staining tomargins, but generally a very good copy, uncut in the original printed wrappers,worn, spine repaired, Russian booksellers’ stamps to inside back wrapper, oldsignature to front cover and title; in a folding cloth box. £1800Second, corrected edition of the first complete printing of Gore ot uma in Russia; inthe rare original printed wrappers. A note at the end states that the errors in thefirst complete edition (also 1862) have been corrected here, but that the presentedition also has a few errors, corrected in the ‘errata’ at the end.The first edition of Griboedov’s great play, published in Moscow in 1833, hadsubstantial cuts. According to Piksanov, it was shortly followed by a couple ofpiracies of the ‘full’ text, but it is not known how many of those were printed andwhat sort of circulation they achieved; only a single copy is known of each. In1858, two German editions were published, by Gustav Baer in Leipzig andFerdinand Schneider in Berlin; both are rare. It took another four years before thecomplete text appeared in Russia.This edition not in Kilgour. OCLC lists copies at Stanford and Basel only.51. GRIFFITHS, Anselm John. Observations on some Points of Seamanship;with Practical Hints on Naval Oeconomy. Cheltenham, printed by J.J. Hadley,1824.8vo, pp. xii, 290; occasional, very light spotting; a very good copy, in contemporarystraight-grained blue morocco gilt, broad borders of gilt palmette rolls enclosingblind rolls, spine gilt in compartments, lettered directly in 2, all edges gilt,extremities slightly rubbed and bumped; engraved armorial bookplate ‘Mansel’,probably that of Captain Robert Mansell (1786-1845) who, according to the list ofsubscribers on p. 284, received three copies; bookseller’s ticket of Williams ofCheltenham to front pastedown. £1200First edition. The Observations was written in 1811 when the author was captainof the Leonidas frigate and is based on his experience of a wartime navy during theNapoleonic Wars. ‘As its title suggests, the book is mainly concerned with mattersof seamanship but contains many notes on ship organisation [...]. The chapter on“Conduct of the ship’s company” ranges over many issues and is perhaps the mosthumane and liberal of all the documents which have emerged from the period.Perhaps this is because the bitterness caused by the great wave of mutiniesculminating in 1797 had died down and officers such as Griffiths were able toconsider ways to keep up morale for the future. Certainly the book can be seen aspart of a general humanisation of the Navy after about 1805, with many smallreforms such as the abolition of running the gauntlet and starting and theregularisation of the position of the caplain on board ship’ (B. Lavery, ed.,Shipboard Life and Organisation 1731-1815, pp. 255-256).