Teffi, the pseudonym of Nadezhda Lokhvitskaia (1872-1952), was perhaps the most celebrated humorist writer of Russia Abroad.  Highly acclaimed in pre-revolutionary Russia, she remained a prolific and successful writer after her emigration to Paris in 1918.  Teffi dedicated the copy above of her 1931 Kniga Iiun’ to Ariadna Vladimirovna Tyrkova-Williams.  The dedication reads ‘To Ariadna Vladimirovna, with respect and love. The author’.

Tyrkova-Williams (1868-1962) was a celebrated journalist, writer and political activist who once represented the Kadets party in the Petrograd Duma.  She was a former school friend of Nadezhda Krupskaia, Lenin’s wife, about whom Lenin famously said he promised he would “hang her from a lamppost”.  She lived in emigration in London, Paris, and Washington.

Kniga Iiun’ : razskazy / Teffi (1931)