WARMLY INSCRIBED BY FAMOUS ANARCHY THEORIST PIETR KROPOTKIN
KROPOTKIN, P. Memoirs of a Revolutionist. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899. Octavo, original burgundy cloth, top edge gilt.
First edition of Kropotkin’s influential Memoirs—“Kropotkin’s approach to anarchism remained influential throughout the 20th century”—inscribed below the facsimile signature beneath the frontispiece portrait: “With kindest remembrance and very best wishes. P. Kropotkin. April 28 1901.”
Pietr Alekseevich Kropotkin is “one of the foremost anarchist theorists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” Trained as a scientist and born into the Russian aristocracy, Kropotkin was influenced by anarchists on travels to Europe, leading to his imprisonment on his return to Russia. After escaping prison, he left Russia to settle first in Switzerland, then in France and England, and founded several leading anarchist newspapers. “In a famous article in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1910), Kropotkin defined anarchism as a theory of society without government in which free agreements among individuals and groups produce harmony. As an anarchist, Kropotkin saw the state and law as one of the central barriers to social change… Kropotkin’s approach to anarchism remained influential throughout the 20th century” (Encyclopedia of 19th-Century Thought, 362-3). With a preface by George Brandes. Initially serialized in the Atlantic Monthly (1888-99), Kropotkin’s Memoirs was published simultaneously in England and the United States in 1899. Contemporary owner signature. A few pencil markings and marginal annotations. Pencil notations on rear endpapers.
Interior generally quite nice, very faint dampstain to front board, light rubbing and mild toning to spine. A near-fine copy, quite scarce inscribed.