RANSOME, Arthur (author). Dmitri MITROKHIN (illustrator). Old Peter’s Russian Tales. New York Frederick Stokes & Company. [1917]

8vo. Original decorated white cloth printed in mustard, red and black to upper cover and lettered and decorated in black to spine, original boldly floral endpapers in colours; pp. [x], [11]-334; with frontispiece, 6 other fine coloured plates on coated paper, and black-and-white pictorial chapter-headings and tailpieces; a very good copy of this vulnerable book with light external soiling and rubbing, bruising to spine ends, some blistering to upper joint, and with a neat early gift inscription to front blank.

First U.S. edition of this early collection of Russian fairy tales in English, published a year after the English edition, in exactly the same format and binding.

Writer and journalist Arthur Ransome (1884-1967) put together this collection of 21 vivid and accessible stories from Russian (and Ukrainian) folklore after spending time in the country.  Rather than assembling a work comprised of straightforward translations, the author rather drew inspiration from a host of various oral adaptations and rewrote the stories in a vivid and compelling format, to appeal to the English child reader. 

The tales are presented as related by an old Russian peasant to his grandchildren round the fireside and include magical creatures, heroic challenges and moral lessons, as well as the legend of Baba Yaga, the iconic witch of Russian folk history.  Stories include “The Silver Saucer and the Transparent Apple”, in which a young girl outwits her greedy adversaries; “Frost”, the tale of a boy who outsmarts the icy spirit Frost using his talent of quick thinking, and “The Little Daughter of the Snow”, a poignant winter story of familial love.