# Is "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (Tip. V. Grachiova, 1862) is identified by: The text first appeared in print in Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, February 1862; the first separate edition followed the same year from the press of V. Russian is the true first: Moscow, 1862 (Grachev), preceded in print by the Russkiy Vestnik serial of February 1862.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The text first appeared in print in Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, February 1862; the first separate edition followed the same year from the press of V. Grachiova (V. Grachev & Co.), Moscow, 1862, 304 pages
- The book text is not the magazine text: for the separate edition Turgenev added the dedication to the critic Belinsky and revised passages of Bazarov's characterisation, so the Belinsky dedication leaf is the primary tell that a copy is the separate first rather than a made-up serial extract
- The first edition in English is Leypoldt & Holt, New York, 1867, translated by Eugene Schuyler, a 12mo in publisher's gilt-stamped cloth (green cloth recorded on trade copies)
- No edition statement is recorded for the 1867 issue, so identification rests on the Leypoldt & Holt imprint and the 1867 title-page date; dealers describe firsts simply as 'First Edition, First Printing'
- Publisher imprint reads Tip. V. Grachiova
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ivan Turgenev |
| Publisher | Tip. V. Grachiova |
| Year | 1862 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The text first appeared in print in Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, February 1862; the first separate edition followed the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
The text first appeared in print in Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Herald), Moscow, February 1862; the first separate edition followed the same year from the press of V. Grachiova (V. Grachev & Co.), Moscow, 1862, 304 pages. The book text is not the magazine text: for the separate edition Turgenev added the dedication to the critic Belinsky and revised passages of Bazarov's characterisation, so the Belinsky dedication leaf is the primary tell that a copy is the separate first rather than a made-up serial extract. The first edition in English is Leypoldt & Holt, New York, 1867, translated by Eugene Schuyler, a 12mo in publisher's gilt-stamped cloth (green cloth recorded on trade copies). No edition statement is recorded for the 1867 issue, so identification rests on the Leypoldt & Holt imprint and the 1867 title-page date; dealers describe firsts simply as 'First Edition, First Printing'.

## Is this the true first?
Russian is the true first: Moscow, 1862 (Grachev), preceded in print by the Russkiy Vestnik serial of February 1862. For English-language collectors the first is American — Leypoldt & Holt, New York, 1867 (Schuyler) — and it precedes the first British edition, which dealer bibliographies place at 1883; both the Moscow 1862 and the New York 1867 are collected. Turgenev's own French translation made with Louis Viardot (1863) precedes the English and is a separate collecting point; Schuyler acknowledged consulting it, and textual comparison indicates he leaned on the French more often than the Russian.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for either the 1862 Moscow or the 1867 New York edition. The recurring traps are 'first thus' reprints of the Schuyler text and the later English translations — Constance Garnett's of the 1890s, and the Modern Library, Everyman and Limited Editions Club issues — which are routinely offered as 'first editions' of the title. Soviet-era and modern Russian reprints of Otsy i deti are common and carry the 1862 date only as a text date, not an imprint date.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Fathers and Sons* by Ivan Turgenev a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/fathers-and-sons
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.