The third book. Mandelstam N.Ya.

Two memoirs of Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam “Memories” and especially “The Second Book” became her literary testament, an invaluable monument to her husband - the amazing poet Osip Mandelstam - and the true evidence of the terrible years of Russia. Having fulfilled her difficult mission, Nadezhda Yakovlevna almost moved away from literary affairs, but the tireless and persistent requests of friends prompted her to continue to recall-to describe the times of childhood and adolescence, the pre-Mandelstam years. The memoirist did not love this time too much - she thought of her biography inseparable from meeting with Mandelstam and their joint and divided life, in which, according to her, the “ease and consciousness of doom” were unchanged. The lack of lively interest, old age and illness led to the fact that the “third book”, not counting several essays about childhood, parents and family, as the author’s collection did not take place. But close friends of Nadezhda Yakovlevna considered it desirable to collect everything that was ever written by her.

This book meets this wish. Compiled from heterogeneous materials, it includes autobiographical chapters, letters, critical articles, as well as the first samples of the writer's pen, published in the collection of Tarusa Pages. A special place in the publication is occupied by comments of Nadezhda Yakovlevna to the verses of Osip Mandelstam 1930-1937.