The Firebird and Other Russian Fairy Tales

This book introduces a forgotten master of Russian decorative art, Boris Zvorykin, one of the last and most impressive artists in the great Russian tradition of book illustration. Zvorykin left Russia after the Revolution and settled finally in Paris, where he found employment in the publishing house of H. Piazza. At some point in the 1920s, years after the Russia he knew had disappeared, he made the original of this book as a present for his employer, Louis Fricotelle. He translated four Russian fairy tales into French, writing them out in beautiful calligraphy and illustrating them on heavy vellum pages, which he then bound in red Moroccan leather embossed with Russian motifs. It was a gift of gratitude for a new life, celebrating all he valued and missed in the old.
Fifty years later Andreas Brown of the Gotham Book MArt brought this luxurious manuscript to the attention of Jacqueline Onassis (who also edited In the Russian Style) and The Viking Press, where it was decided to issue the book in a format that would make it accessible to the public. All the splendid illustrations – vivid in color, detail, and not least of all, whimsy – are reproduced from the original art. The stories – The Firebird, Maria Morevna, The Snow Maiden, and Vassilissa the Fair – spiced with quintessentially Russian images and supernatural beings, are based on existing English translations that have been modified to preserve the flavor of Zvorykin’s versions.