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1939 · 22605 — New York: Critics Group Press. Very Good in Very Good dj. 1939. First American Edition. Hardcover. some light staining to fore-edge otherwise a good solid book with minimal shelfwear; jacket sunned at spine with some wear evident along the top edge along with a few tiny nicks and tears. "A stirring historical novel depicting the struggle of the Ukranian people against German and Polish aggression." Ostrovsky became a Bolshevik party activist and soon joined the Red Army in 1918 when he was not yet 14 years old. Wounded and demobilized he went on to suffer numerous health-related problems having already contracted ankylosing spondylitis a form of arthritis and by 1929 had become virtually bedridden and had also gone blind. However this didn't deter him from writing his first novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" which earned him much acclaim and is considered one of the most influential works of Communist literature. It was published in America following his death as "The Making of a Hero." The present novel his second was left uncompleted at the time of his death at age 32 in 1936 although the jacket blurb says he died in 1935 "just as he was completing" it. In any event the enthusiastic jacket blurber just kind of glides over this point writing: "Death prevented Nicholas Ostrovsky from setting down the final glorious outcome but it is written on the pages of history." The final page of the book ends with this note: "The manuscript ends here." . Critics Group Press hardcover books