Turgenev MS could fetch $1.4M

Press, 18 March 1989, Page 11

Turgenev MS could fetch $1.4M

NZPA-PA London A 127-year-old masterpiece of Russian literature is expected to fetch up to £500,000 (SNZI.42 million) when it is auctioned at Sotheby’s in London on May 18. It would make Ivan Turgenev’s working manuscript of “Fathers and Sons” more valuable than any other modern literary manuscript with the exception of Kafka’s “The Trial,” which fetched £l.l million (SNZ3.I million) at Sotheby’s last November.

The author, as was his custom, wrote a title page for the manuscript which

reads “Fathers and Sons, a novel by Ivan Turgenev. Conceived in 1860, during the summer in England. “For a very long time I was unable to master the subject, began it in Paris in the autumn, wrote it slowly and finally finished it on 30 July, 1861, a Sunday in Spasskoye. Published in the February issue of the Russian Messenger in 1862.” Spasskoye was Turgenev’s country estate in Russia. At the end of the manuscript he signed it again “IS Turgenev. Finished at Spasskoye on Sunday 30 July, at 25 minutes to one, 1861.”

“Fathers and Sons” caused “the greatest storm among its Russian readers of any Russian novel before, or indeed, since,” according to Sir Isaiah Berlin. After its publication, Turgenev was attacked by both Left and Right-wing thinkers. While Turgenev was working on the novel, Tolstoy fell asleep as he read the manuscript and the two writers quarrelled violently.

Tolstoy is said to have made disparaging remarks about Turgenev’s illegitimate daughter and the two almost fought a duel.