RUSSIA – KOBEKO, Dimitrii Fomich (editor). Imperatorskaia Publichnaia Biblioteka za Sto Let. 1814-1914. [The Imperial Public Library 100 years on. 1814-1914.] St Petersburg: by V. F. Kirshbaum, 1914. 4° (337 x 246mm). 30 plates, including frontispiece, printed by Golike and Vilborg. (Light offsetting on the title, margins lightly yellowed.) Contemporary Russian half vellum by M. Uleman, with label, spine with raised bands gilt in compartments centred with black morocco onlays, leather label titled in Cyrillic, top edge gilt, printed endpapers (vellum lightly yellowed and with light and scattered spotting, spine onlays lost, extremities rubbed).

RUSSIA – KOBEKO, Dimitrii Fomich (editor). Imperatorskaia Publichnaia Biblioteka za Sto Let. 1814-1914. [The Imperial Public Library 100 years on. 1814-1914.] St Petersburg: by V. F. Kirshbaum, 1914. 4° (337 x 246mm). 30 plates, including frontispiece, printed by Golike and Vilborg. (Light offsetting on the title, margins lightly yellowed.) Contemporary Russian half vellum by M. Uleman, with label, spine with raised bands gilt in compartments centred with black morocco onlays, leather label titled in Cyrillic, top edge gilt, printed endpapers (vellum lightly yellowed and with light and scattered spotting, spine onlays lost, extremities rubbed).

FIRST EDITION of this fine jubilee publication. Although officially founded by Catherine II in 1795, the library did not open until 1814; in 1917 it became the Russian Public Library, and in 1992 the Russian National Library.