Yingl Tsingl Khvat [The Mischievous Boy], by Mani Leib. Illustrations by Eliezer (El) Lissitzky. Warsaw: "Kultur-Lige", 1922. Yiddish. Second edition.

A rhymed tale for children by Yiddish poet Menahem Leib Brahinsky (Mani Leib); accompanied by black-and-white illustrations by El Lissitzky, with a color cover illustration and a title page specially printed for this edition.

The book Yingl Tsingl Khvat was first published in 1919, designed by El Lissitzky, featuring on its front cover an illustration of a child riding a horse, printed in three colors – red, blue, and yellow (this illustration is among Lissitzky's most recognized works).

For the second edition, Lissitzky created an additional illustration, distinct from the other illustrations in the book – a modernist version of the colorful cover illustration –"distilling" the image of the child and horse into just three lines, combined with the text (this illustration served as the title page for the second edition).

The second edition was printed in 1922 in Warsaw in two sizes: a small booklet format (14 cm) and a full-sized book (the same size as the first edition). The present is a copy of the larger version, which is the rarer of the two.

See:

• Christina Lodder, Ideology and Identity: El Lissitzky in Berlin, (in: The Russian Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937. Leiden-Boston: Brill, [ca. 2012], pp. 339–360).

• Alexander Kantsedikas, El Lissitzky, The Jewish Period. London: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2017 (p. 97).

[1], 10, [1] pages, 26 cm. Fair condition (cover in fair-poor condition). Stains. Creases. Front cover detached. Tears and missing pieces along cover edges (mostly minor).