Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883)
Recommending the translator August Viedert. 1854
Autograph letter signed (‘I. Turgeneff’) to [Karl August Varnhagen von Ense] (‘Hochgeehrtester Herr’), Saint Petersburg, 2/14 February 1854.

In German. Two pages, 187 x 118mm, on a bifolium. Provenance: Serge Lifar (1905-1986), stamp to upper left of p.1 – Sotheby’s, 10 June 2009, lot 107 (part).

Recommending the translations of August Viedert, and especially his work on Gogol’s Government Inspector. ‘I am writing to you in the hope that you still remember me and grasp the opportunity of the departure of Mr von Viedert [sic] – to send my best greetings to you through him. – Mr von Viedert has worked a great deal on translations from the Russian – he has shared most of them with me – and I cannot help but give them the highest praise for their fidelity and liveliness’. Viedert will also be able to acquaint the recipient with Turgenev’s latest doings. ‘I hope that Mr von Viedert’s endeavours with Russian literature will be crowned with the greatest success – and I am persuaded that you will assist him as much as possible in this – especially as concerns Gogol’s Government Inspector’.

August Viedert (1825-1888) was a Russian-German literary critic and translator (see following seven lots for letters to him by Turgenev). He departed on a tour of Germany in March 1854, initially conducting readings of his translation of Gogol's Revizor [The Government Inspector], which was published in July that year; his translation of the first part of Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches followed in October. The recipient, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (1785-1858) was a biographer and diplomat: Turgenev had met him during his student years in Berlin.

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