The Island of Sakhalin

London: The Folio Society, 1989. First thus. Hardcover in slipcase. Fine/Near fine. From Wikipedia:
"Sakhalin Island consists of "travel notes" written after Anton Chekhov's trip to the island of Sakhalin in summer and autumn of 1890. The book is based on the writer's personal travel experience, as well as on extensive statistical data collected by him. The English translation came out in 1967 under the title The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin.

In the opinion of some critics, the book was influenced by The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Siberia and Katorga by Sergei Maksimov (who is repeatedly mentioned in the text).

At the time Sakhalin was a frontier prison colony of the Russian Empire. In 1890, Chekhov undertook an arduous journey by train, horse-drawn carriage, and river steamer to the Russian Far East and the katorga, or penal colony, on Sakhalin Island, north of Japan, where he spent three months interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census. The letters Chekhov wrote during the two-and-a-half-month journey to Sakhalin are considered to be among his best. His remarks to his sister about Tomsk were to become notorious.

Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the drunkards whose acquaintance I have made, and from the intellectual people who have come to the hotel to pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are very dull, too.

Chekhov witnessed much on Sakhalin that shocked and angered him, including floggings, embezzlement of supplies, and forced prostitution of women. He wrote, "There were times I felt that I saw before me the extreme limits of man's degradation." He was particularly moved by the plight of the children living in the penal colony with their parents. For example:

On the Amur steamer going to Sakhalin, there was a convict who had murdered his wife and wore fetters on his legs. His daughter, a little girl of six, was with him. I noticed wherever the convict moved the little girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. At night the child slept with the convicts and soldiers all in a heap together.

Chekhov later concluded that charity was not the answer, but that the government had a duty to finance humane treatment of the convicts."

This copy is fine in light gray cloth with brown and gilt titles and illustrations on the spine and front cover.  It is enclosed in a maroon sturdy slipcase.  Just very slight shelf wear on the bottom of the slipcase, but no other marks or damage to either the book itself or slipcase.  The bookplate of a previous owner is affixed to the inside of the front cover.  

. CH.