Manufacturers, Printers and Booksellers in the 1872–1918 Records of F. M. and A. G. Dostoevsky

Abstract

Abstract The Dostoevsky couple’s book trade is a separate, vast topic that has recently attracted increasingly greater attention of researchers. Starting in 1872 — the period of preparation of the novel “Demons” (1873) for publication — the Dostoevskys dealt with various publishers, printers, manufacturers and booksellers. The article is based on the 1872–1881 notebooks of F. M. Dostoevsky and the 1876–1918 notebooks of A. G. Dostoevskaya, as well as on scientific literature on publishing and book trade of 19th-century Russia, expanded comments and biographical references to such representatives of the book business as the Vargunin brothers and separately father and son Alexander Ivanovich and Konstantin Alexandrovich Vargunin; the Glazunov brothers and separately Alexander Ilyich and Ivan Ilyich Glazunov. The last representatives of the Glazunov publishing clan, Konstantin Ilyich and Ilya Ivanovich Glazunov, with whom, judging by the notebooks, A. G. Dostoevskaya interacted after the writer’s death, are being discussed for the first time. The article expanded the comment on the surname “Mamontov.” In the research literature on Dostoevsky, the emphasis is placed either exclusively on the writer’s relationship with Nikolai Ivanovich Mamontov, or with Anatoly Ivanovich Mamontov. Based on the notebooks of A. G. Dostoevskaya of 1876–1881, the article demonstrates that the Dostoevskys communicated with both representatives of the Mamontov family at that time. It is also suggested that in the late receipts issued by A. G. Dostoevskaya to a subscriber of the bookstore of a certain N. G. Mamontov, most likely refer to the bookseller N. G. Martynov. A. G. Dostoevskaya’s notebooks of the period after Dostoevsky’s death shows that the widow continued to cooperate with many publishers, booksellers and manufacturers after her husband’s death.