SADOVEANU, Mihail. The Hatchet. Trans. from the Romanian by Eugenia Farca. London: George Allen and Unwin. 1965. 8vo. First edition thus; first revised translation and first printing with Allen and Unwin. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking dust jacket. A very good or better copy, the cloth clean, bright and gently bumped to extremities. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout, very mild spots to textblock edges. The dust jacket unclipped (18s net), several small closed tears to edges, extremities slightly rubbed with small stain to front panel lower.
Originally published in 1930 in Romania under the title Baltagul, The Hatchet is the author’s most famous work, a crime novel based on a local folkloric ballad, Miorița (The Little Sheep), in which a shepherd is killed by two other shepherds who coveted his flock. In that tale, the little sheep informs the shepherd of his impending death, and yet the shepherd does nothing—a noted ontological tragedy. In this novelistic retelling, the victim’s wife is the protagonist, and the mystery is uncovered mystically through Romanian superstition and ritualistic semiotics—signs to be ‘read’ through nature. Its intrinsic celebration of Romanian custom and tradition led the Communist Party, who prevailed over the country from 1947, to promote Sadoveanu and the novel to dramatic effect, the work becoming arguably the most translated of all Romanian novels. Sadoveanu himself exudes a complex character living in a punishing era. Politically active, he swung between right-, centre-, and left-leaning parties, and casts, not dissimilar to Céline, a man at odds with his personal humanism. English language editions of the novel are uncommon.
SADOVEANU, Mihail. The Hatchet. Trans. from the Romanian by Eugenia Farca. London: George Allen and Unwin. 1965. 8vo. First edition thus; first revised translation and first printing with Allen and Unwin. Publisher’s red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the striking dust jacket. A very good or better copy, the cloth clean, bright and gently bumped to extremities. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout, very mild spots to textblock edges. The dust jacket unclipped (18s net), several small closed tears to edges, extremities slightly rubbed with small stain to front panel lower.
Originally published in 1930 in Romania under the title Baltagul, The Hatchet is the author’s most famous work, a crime novel based on a local folkloric ballad, Miorița (The Little Sheep), in which a shepherd is killed by two other shepherds who coveted his flock. In that tale, the little sheep informs the shepherd of his impending death, and yet the shepherd does nothing—a noted ontological tragedy. In this novelistic retelling, the victim’s wife is the protagonist, and the mystery is uncovered mystically through Romanian superstition and ritualistic semiotics—signs to be ‘read’ through nature. Its intrinsic celebration of Romanian custom and tradition led the Communist Party, who prevailed over the country from 1947, to promote Sadoveanu and the novel to dramatic effect, the work becoming arguably the most translated of all Romanian novels. Sadoveanu himself exudes a complex character living in a punishing era. Politically active, he swung between right-, centre-, and left-leaning parties, and casts, not dissimilar to Céline, a man at odds with his personal humanism. English language editions of the novel are uncommon.
