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Author: Wasson, Valentina Pavlovna & R. Gordon Wasson
Title: Mushrooms, Russia and History
Place Published: New York
Publisher:Pantheon Books
Date Published: [1957]
Description: 2 volumes. With 82 collotype plates from various sources, including many in color from watercolor paintings by Jean-Henri Fabre. 32.2x24 cm (12½x9½"), green cloth with gilt-lettered red cloth spine labels, top edges gilt, slipcase. No. 301 of 512 copies, designed by Hans Mardersteig, printed at the Stamperia Valdonega, Verona.Magical mushrooms, poisonous mushrooms, truffles and more, intertwined with Russian history and folklore. Handsomely printed at the Stamperia Valdonega. Robert Gordon Wasson (1898-1986) was an American author, ethnomycologist, and Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co. In the course of CIA-funded research, Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology. He is perhaps best known for his book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality, an attempt to establish the hallucinogenic fly-agaric mushroom as identical to the divine plant described in the Rig Veda, the earliest religious text of the Indo-European cultures.

Light spotting to slipcase, volumes fine.