Ivan F. Gorbunov

I.F. Gorbunov, Scenes from Folk Life. 6th edition, newly corrected and enlarged. Moscow, published by A.D. Stupin, 1883.

The sixth lifetime edition of the celebrated cycle of stories by Ivan Fedorovich Gorbunov, the Russian writer and actor who was a master of oral storytelling on the stage.

The collection brings together vivid satirical scenes from the lives of peasants, merchants, townspeople, and factory workers, narrated with subtle humour and a profound knowledge of the Russian popular world. In these sketches, often performed on stage by the author himself, pre- and post-reform Russia comes to life with its superstitions, fears, beliefs, and everyday contradictions.

Published by A.D. Stupin's printing house and preserved in a half-leather binding, the edition is both a bibliographic rarity and an interesting record of Russian literary life in the 1880s.