Malachite Casket: Tales from the Urals

The Malachite Casket was originally published in Russian and was a collection of folktales from the region of the Ural Mountains collected by Pavel Bazhov. Originally published in 1939, these stories collected particularly from miners and other labourers in the region became very popular and were translated into various languages. This particular edition is an English translation of twenty of the tales completed by Eve Manning and published by the Foreign Language Publishing House of Moscow, which was a state-run publishing house dedicated to the production of translations of Russian literature for dissemination throughout the world.

This volume is in fair condition. The covers are stained, and there appears to be pain on the front cover. The corners are bumped and there is wear particularly to the top and bottom of the spine. The front hinge is cracked, but otherwise the binding is still tight, and the pages of full colour illustrations appear to all be present. There is an old bookplate on the front paste down, though there is no name written on it. Internally, the book is in good condition, and the text is entirely legible, and includes many of the most popular tales from the original Russian text.