Description

8°: 129 pp. with black and white illustrations, [3], original brown cloth binding with gilt lettering on the cover and spine, blue endpapers, original illustrated dust jacket (Very Good, old dedication on the first endpaper, tiny tears on the edges of the dustjacket, otherwise a seemingly unused example).

 
The stories on Odesa, the home town of Isaac Babel were first published as a book in 1926. These translations were made by a Croatia-born Yugoslav poet Gustav Krklec (1899-1977) and the illustrations were made by a Croatian academic painter Marino Tartaglia (1894 – 1984). The cover designer was Pavle Bihaly. 

Pavel Bihaly (or Bihali, 1889-1941), one of the most active editors, translators and designers of 1920s and 1930s in Yugoslavia, was born to a Jewish family of Hungarian origins in Zemun, Serbia. He inherited his fathers interior decorating and painting firm, and soon developed interests in design. 

Bihaly, a member of the Communist party since 1920, founded his publishing house “Nova Literatura” (New Literature), or short Nolit, in 1928, where he alongside with other Yugoslav authors published progressive literary texts and poems, influenced by modern foreign authors, with which Bihaly formed strong connections over the years. For Nolit, Bihaly worked as an editor, translator, writer and designer of covers. 

After the beginning of the war, in 1941, Bihaly went into hiding, but was soon arrested by Gestapo for being of Jewish origins and a known member of the Communist party. He was shot in Belgrade on July 17, 1941. 

Worldcat only lists two copies (Two libraries in Slovenia and Kent State University). 

References: OCLC  755121425 & 3924000.