Dlya Golossa

1923. LISSITZKY, El. Dlya Golosa. [For Reading Out Loud]. By Vladimir Mayakovsky. 61, [3] pp., illustrated throughout by Lissitzky. 8vo, 187 x 132 mm., bound in original publisher's thick orange wrappers designed by Lissitzky, housed in a new cloth box. Berlin: Gosizdat, 1923. One of the cornerstones of any collection of Russian Futurist books. Dlya Golosa is widely considered to be Lissitzky's masterpiece of modern typography. Lissitzky designed title pages for each of Mayakovsky's poems, which are some of his most frequently quoted poetic works, including "Left March," "Ramble," "The Third International," "The Art Army," "Love," and "The Story of Red Riding Hood." Lissitzky described the inspiration that prompted the innovative design of Dlya Golosa in his essay "Typographical Facts": "To make it easier for the reader to find any particular poem, I use an alphabetical (i.e., thumb-indexed) index. The book is created with the resources of the compositor's type case alone. The possibilities of two-colour printing (overlap, cross hatching and so on) have been exploited to the full. My pages stand in much the same relation to the poems as an accompanying piano to a violin. Just as the poet in his poem unites concept and sound, I have tried to create an equivalent unity using the poem and typography" (cf. Lissitzky-Kuppers, #94-108). What resulted was an outstanding typographical success. A fine copy. From Manet to Hockney 68. Nisbet, El Lissitzky 1890-1941, p. 26, plate 94 and p. 186. Leclanche-Boulé, plates 21 and 77.