# Is "Fathers and Sons (Ottsy i deti)" by Ivan Turgenev a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Fathers and Sons (Ottsy i deti) by Ivan Turgenev (Tipografiya V. Grachova, 1862) is identified by: First appearance: serially in Russkii Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, March 1862. CENSUS REFINED.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First appearance: serially in Russkii Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, March 1862
- First separate book edition: Moscow, tip
- V. Grachiova (V. Grachov's press), 1862, 304 pp., octavo (approx
- 24 x 17 cm)
- The decisive textual point separating the book from the serial is the dedication to Vissarion Belinsky (1811–1848), Turgenev's late mentor, which is present in the separate edition and absent from the Russkii Vestnik serial
- Turgenev added it to signal the novel's democratic sympathies against critics who read Bazarov as a hostile caricature
- Publisher imprint reads Tipografiya V. Grachova

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ivan Turgenev |
| Publisher | Tipografiya V. Grachova |
| Year | 1862 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First appearance: serially in Russkii Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, March 1862 |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First appearance: serially in Russkii Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, March 1862. First separate book edition: Moscow, tip. V. Grachiova (V. Grachov's press), 1862, 304 pp., octavo (approx. 24 x 17 cm). The decisive textual point separating the book from the serial is the dedication to Vissarion Belinsky (1811–1848), Turgenev's late mentor, which is present in the separate edition and absent from the Russkii Vestnik serial; Turgenev added it to signal the novel's democratic sympathies against critics who read Bazarov as a hostile caricature. He also revised the text for the book, softening several of Bazarov's more unpleasant features. Publisher's wrappers are rare; copies are usually found in contemporary half-leather over marbled boards with gilt-ornamented spines.

## Is this the true first?
CENSUS REFINED. The census names 'Russkii Vestnik, Moscow' as the true-first publisher; that is the journal of first serial appearance (March 1862), not the publisher of the first book. The first edition in book form is Moscow, tip. V. Grachiova, 1862 — both the serial and the separate edition are 1862, so the year stands, but the imprint does not. The census's headline claim is CONFIRMED: the first English-language edition is American, not British — Eugene Schuyler's translation, 'Fathers and Sons: A Novel,' by Ivan Sergheievitch Turgenef, New York: Leypoldt & Holt, 1867, 12mo, in publisher's original gilt-stamped green cloth, catalogued by ABAA dealers as the FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. It is also the first Turgenev translation to appear in the United States, and no British edition of the novel is recorded before it; the Schuyler translation was itself reissued in 1883. Turgenev privately doubted Schuyler's command of Russian and suspected he worked from the French, a charge later translators dispute. Constance Garnett's version, as 'Fathers and Children,' did not appear until 1895. Both the Moscow 1862 first and the New York 1867 first-in-English are collected.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for the 1862 Moscow first or the 1867 New York first-in-English. The reprint tells are on the English side: the 1883 reissue of the Schuyler translation, and the long line of later translations — Garnett 1895 ('Fathers and Children'), Hapgood (New York: Scribner's, 1903), Hogarth (London: Dent, 1921) — each of which is a 'first thus' for its own translation only and is regularly mis-offered as an early edition on the strength of the 1862 date printed in the front matter.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Fathers and Sons (Ottsy i deti)* by Ivan Turgenev a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/fathers-and-sons-ottsy-i-deti
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.