Issues

This article traces the history of the text of Nadezhda Teffi’s first book, “Humorous Stories”, published in St. Petersburg by the publishing house “Shipovnik” in 1910, which became her most frequently reprinted collection during her lifetime. The publication was preceded by nearly ten years of active creative work, which had already made Teffi beloved and popular. The book cemented and confirmed this recognition, adding to readers’ admiration the approval of critics who had previously paid little serious attention to humorous prose. To a certain extent, this debut collection of prose is also regarded as a culmination of her work: Teffi selected for the collection what she considered to be her most significant humorous stories from the vast number of works published by that time — a total of thirty-five stories. The earliest of these were first published in May 1903, while the story “Life and a Collar” appeared in print shortly before the book’s publication, in February 1910. Among the periodicals to which Teffi contributed, the book features, in roughly equal proportions, Birzhevye Vedomosti, Rodnaya Zemlya / Svobodnye Mysli, and Satirikon; however, when considering the three periods of her earlier creative work identified in the article, the largest number of works belongs to the last of these. The ability to select the best pieces saved Teffi from having to substantially rewrite her stories, but there was no question of simply copying texts from a newspaper or magazine into a book. Teffi refined her works, taking into account, among other things, the new book-based context; in some cases, she changed or adjusted the title, removed subtitles, and eliminated passages related to the specific newspaper context, and so on. From works written in different years and on different topics, she strove to create a unity of genre and style. The coherence of Teffi’s books largely determined their publishing fate: between 1910 and 1917, ten editions of her first book, “Humorous Stories”, were published, and stories from it were reprinted both in exile and in the USSR.