USPENSKY F.I. (1845-1928) Istoriya Vizantiyskoy imperii [History of the Byzantine Empire]: [in 3 vols.]. St Petersburg: Brockhaus-Efron, [1913]-1948. Vol. 1 [the only one published before the Revolution]. [1913].

XIV, 872 pp.: ill., [12] plates, [7] maps; 31 x 23 cm. Plates, maps and plans printed by I. Kadushkin’s lithographic works in St Petersburg. In the publisher’s full leather binding with gilt and blind tooling, top edge gilt, fore and lower edges deckled, ribbon marker. In good condition. Rubbing and scratches to the leather, soiling to the endpapers, crease to the free endpaper. Armorial bookplate of the English archaeologist, art historian and Byzantinist David Talbot Rice (1903-1972) on the endpaper. The first book of the outstanding trilogy by the Russian Byzantinist Professor Fyodor Ivanovich Uspensky (1845-1928) devoted to the thousand-year history of the Byzantine Empire. Because of the outbreak of the First World War the edition was not completed. The second and third volumes appeared under Soviet rule, in 1927 and 1948, and the quality of their production was no match for the first volume. The first volume covers the period from the founding of Byzantium to 867. The book was sumptuously produced in a large format, on coated paper, in a costly leather binding, with numerous illustrations both in the text and on separate plates, in black and white and in colour.