Black Snow: A Theatrical Novel

New York: Simon and Schuster. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1967). First American Edition. Hardcover. [light shelfwear only, spine very slightly turned, thin black line (remainder mark) on bottom edge of text block; the jacket has a few small edge-tears and nicks, and is lightly sun-tanned along the spine]. A late satirical novel by Bulgakov, written in 1936 but first published in Russia in 1965 (a quarter-century after the author's death), telling "in fictional form what might well have happened when he set out, at the start of his writing career, to dramatize one of his own novels for the two outstanding geniuses and tyrants of the Moscow theater -- Konstantin Stanislavski and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, the men who created and ran the famous Moscow Art Theater, [and who] became legends before they died, alternately worshiped and feared by actors, playwrights, playgoers." In particular, the novel "is aimed squarely at debunking the great Stanislavski," and grew out of Bulgakov's own (frustrating and distinctly non-fictional) experience with Stanislavski, related to the staging of his plays "The Days of the Turbins" and "The Cabal of Hypocrites." . (Inventory #: 28405)