Dymov, Osip [Yosif (Osip) Isidorovich Perelman] / Capek, Josef.

Bezici od Krize Velky Clovek / Bežící od kríže. Velký clovek : Román. [Unlike the Great People’s Crisis].

Praze / Prague, Aventinum, 1927. Octavo. 243 pages. Original, illustrated softcover, designed by Josef Capek in protective collector’s mylar. First edition in printed wrappers. Excellent condition. [Romanova knihovna Aventina, XLII].

Josef Capek (Czech pronunciation: [23 March 1887 – April 1945) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Capek.
Capek was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful, minimalist style. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own, he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children, and of ‘savages’. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term robot. As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové Noviny, a newspaper based in Prague. Due to his critical attitude towards national socialism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945. In June 1945 Rudolf Margolius, accompanied by Capek’s wife Jarmila Capková, went to Bergen-Belsen to search for him. His remains were never found. In 1948 the court officially set the date of his death, the day which he did not survive being 30 April 1947. His illustrated stories Povídání o Pejskovi a Kocicce (All About Doggie and Pussycat) are considered classics of Czech children’s literature. (Wikipedia)

Osip Dymov was the pseudonym for Yosif (Osip) Isidorovich Perelman (1878–1959), a Russian writer. His brother was popular-science writer Yakov Perelman. Dymov was born in Bialystok, in the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Poland). His father came from Germany, and died when Yosif was quite young. Yosif attended a Russian gymnasium, and went on to study at the Imperial Forestry Institute in St. Petersburg, graduating in 1902. At the age of 16 he began to publish humorous stories in Russian satiric journals. At that time he took the pen name ‘Osip Dymov’, from the character in Anton Chekhov’s short story “The Grasshopper” (1892), and continued to write under that name throughout his career. He emigrated to the United States in 1913, at the invitation of Yiddish actor and theatre director Boris Thomashefsky, and subsequently became known for his contributions to Yiddish theatre. Among his most popular plays are Yoshke Musikant (Yoshke the musician; 1914) and Bronx Express (1919). The latter play had its premiere in 1919 in a Yiddish translation, at the Jewish Art theatre of Jacob Ben-Ami; it was later translated into English and performed at the Astor Theatre on Broadway, in 1922, to mixed reviews. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Avantgarda · Czech Art · Czech Avantgarde · Czech Avantgarde Illustrator · Czech Literature · Czech Literature – Collection · International Literature – Rare · Library & Collection Building · Russian Literature · Typografie · Typographie · Typography · Typography Rare · World Literature
• Language: Czech
• Dust Jacket
• Inventory Number: 60144AB