Mess Mend ili IAnki v Petrograde. [Mess Mend or Yankee in Petrograd].By Dzim Dollar, aka Marietta Shaginyan.10 volumes.Each volume with a different cover illustrated with photomontage by Rodchenko.12mo., 178 x 130 mm, bound in publisher’s illustrated wrappers.Moskva : Gosudarstvennoe izdatelʹstvo, 1924.
A rare complete set of this serialized detective novel with constructivist covers designed by Rodchenko.Written by Marietta Shaginyan under the pseudonym Jim Dollar, in essence, Mess Mend was the equivalent to American pulp magazines of the time. The major difference being the revolutionary messages embedded within its text.
Volumes 1, 3 & 4 have warm inscriptions in English signed either ‘J’, ‘Jim’ or ‘James’ Dollar.
OCLC locates just two complete sets in the US at Johns Hopkins and Harvard.The covers have some professional reinforcement to the verso, overall a pleasing example of this genuine rarity.
Fundacion Juan March, The Avant-Garde Applied 1890-1950, p. 192.Rowell & Wye, no. 548.
