This volume collects many classic Russian short stories, including Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades," Gogol's "The Cloak," Turgenev's "The District Doctor," Dostoyevsky's "The Chirstmas Tree and the Wedding," Tolstoy's "God Ses the Truth, But Waits," more.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. A countess with a card trick; love letters filled with deception; a desperate man with a pistol.'The Queen of Spades', one of Pushkin's most popular and chilling stories, is accompanied here by the thrilling 'Dubrovsky' and unforgettable 'Tales of Belkin'. 'He is the lasting wonder of Russian literature' - Guardian

My father, Andrew Peter Grineff, having served in his youth under Count Munich, left the army in 17-, with the grade of First Major. From that time he lived on his estate in the Principality of Simbirsk, where he married Avoditia, daughter of a poor noble in the neighborhood. Of nine children, the issue of this marriage, I was the only survivor. My brothers and sisters died in childhood.

Pushkin was the first Russian writer of European stature, and he is among the very few artists - such as Homer and Shakespeare - to have shaped the consciousness and history of an entire nation and its language, thereby affecting the world at large. Eugene Onegin is not merely the greatest poem in the Russian language by its most influential poet: it is a global culture, social and political icon of the highest order. The historical power of this work - a novel in verse - is made all the more extraordinary by the simplicity of its subject. Eugene Onegin is a story of disappointed love. Tatyana falls for the handsome Eugene to whom she daringly makes advances. He cooly rejects her, then flirts with her sister, Olga. When challenged by Olga's fiance, Lensky kills him in a duel, seemingly indifferrent to the grief he causes. (Ironically, Puskhin himself was to be killed in similar circumstances in 1937, some seven years after he completed the work). Onegin leaves the district. When he returns four years later, Tatyana has married another man and it is her turn to reject his advances. But it turns out that Onegin's hauteur is affected: he has always loved her passionately. She loves him too and both reflect painfully on what might have been.

The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories. In this classic literary representation of gambling, Alexander Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. Hints of the occult and gothic alternate with scenes of St Petersburg high-society in the story of the passionate Hermann's quest to master chance and make his fortune at the card-table. Underlying the taut plot is an ironical treatment of the romantic dreamer and social outcast. This volume contains three other major works of Pushkin's fiction, moving from the witty parodies of sentimentalism and high melodrama in The Tales of Belkin to an early experiment with recreating the past in Peter the Great's Blackamoor. It concludes with the novel-length masterpiece The Captain's Daughter, which combines historical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the colour and devices of the Russian fairy-tale in a narrative of rebellion and romance. These new translations, as well as being meticulously faithful to the original, do full justice to the elegance and fluency of Pushkin's prose. The Introduction provides insightful readings of the stories and places them in their European literary context. A chronology of the Pugachov Uprising illuminates the events in The Captain's Daughter. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Ivan Petrovich Belkin left behind a great number of manuscripts.... Most of them, as Ivan Petrovich told me, were true stories heard from various people.
First published anonymously in 1830, Alexander Pushkin's "Tales of Belkin" contains his first prose works. It is comprised of an introductory note and five linked stories, ostensibly collected by the scholar Ivan Belkin. The stories center variously around military figures, the wealthy, and businessmen; this beautiful novella gives a vivid portrait of nineteenth century Russian life.
It has become, as well, one of the most beloved books in Russian literary history, and symbolic of the popularity of the novella form in Russia. In fact, it has become the namesake for Russia's most prestigious annual literary prize, the Belkin Prize, given each year to a book voted by judges to be the best novella of the year.
It is presented here in a sparkling new translation by Josh Billings. "Tales of Belkin" also highlights the nature of our ongoing Art of the Novella Series--that is, that it specializes in important although albeit lesser-known works by major writers, often in new tranlsations.
The Art of The Novella Series
Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

When the world-weary dandy Eugene Onegin moves from St Petersburg to take up residence in the country estate he has inherited, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbour, the poet Vladimir Lensky. Coldly rejecting the amorous advances of Tatyana and cynically courting her sister Olga - Lensky's fiancee - Onegin finds himself dragged into a tragedy of his own making. Eugene Onegin - presented here in a sparkling translation by Roger Clarke, along with extensive notes and commentary - was the founding text of modern Russian literature, marking a clean break from the high-flown classical style of its predecessors and introducing the quintessentially Russian hero and heroine, which would remain the archetypes for novelists throughout the nineteenth century.

A drama of ambition, murder, remorse and retribution, Boris Godunov charts the decline of a Russian statesman, whose dynastic aims were foiled by a guilty past and an audacious upstart. Based on history and inspired by Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin's daring masterwork is presented here in its rarely published uncensored version of 1825. Set in Vienna, Flanders, Madrid and London, Pushkin's celebrated Little Tragedies - Mozart and Salieri, The Mean-Spirited Knight, The Stone Guest and A Feast during the Plague - each focus on a protagonist's driving obsession - with status, money, sex or risk-taking - and its devastating consequences.

As complex as they are gripping, Pushkin's stories are some of the greatest and most influential ever written. Foundational to the development of Russian prose, they retain stunning freshness and clarity, more than ever in Anthony Briggs's finely nuanced translations. These are stories that upend expectations at every turn: in The Captain's Daughter, Pushkin's masterful novella of love and rebellion set during the reign of Catherine the Great, a mysterious encounter proves fatally significant during a brutal uprising, while in 'The Queen of Spades' a man obsessively pursues an elderly woman's secret for success at cards, with bizarre results.

The first volume in the series is by one of the most renowned contemporary translators into English. He discusses his recent experience of translating Tolstoy s "War and Peace," and offers alongside his illuminating essay a wonderful rendition of Pushkin s long poem "The Tale of the Preacher and His Man Bumpkin." The poem is printed in Russian and English and is accompanied by drawings by Pushkin himself."

First published in 1831, Belkin's Stories was the first completed work of fiction by the founding father of Russian literature. Through a series of interlinked stories purporting to have been told by various narrators to the recently deceased country squire Ivan Belkin, Pushkin offers his own variation on themes and genres that were popular in his day and provides a vivid portrayal of the Russian people. From the story of revenge served cold in 'The Shot' to the havoc wreaked by a blizzard on the life of two young lovers, from the bittersweet tones of 'The Station Master' to the supernatural atmosphere of 'The Undertaker', this collection - presented here in a brand-new translation by Roger Clarke - sparkles with humour and is a testament to the brilliance and versatility of Pushkin's mind.

An NYRB Classics Original Alexander Pushkin's short novel is set during the reign of Catherine the Great, when the Cossacks rose up in rebellion against the Russian empress. Presented as the memoir of Pyotr Grinyov, a nobleman, The Captain's Daughter tells how, as a feckless youth and fledgling officer, Grinyov was sent from St. Petersburg to serve in faraway southern Russia. Traveling to take up this new post, Grinyov loses his shirt gambling and then loses his way in a terrible snowstorm, only to be guided to safety by a mysterious peasant. With impulsive gratitude Grinyov hands over his fur coat to his savior, never mind the cold. Soon after he arrives at Fort Belogorsk, Grinyov falls in love with Masha, the beautiful young daughter of his captain. Then Pugachev, leader of the Cossack rebellion, surrounds the fort. Resistance, he has made it clear, will be met with death. At once a fairy tale and a thrilling historical novel, this singularly Russian work of the imagination is also a timeless, universal, and very winning story of how love and duty can summon pluck and luck to confront calamity. Traveling to take up this new post, Grinyov loses his shirt gambling and then loses his way in a terrible snowstorm, only to be guided to safety by a mysterious peasant. With impulsive gratitude Grinyov hands over his fur coat to his savior, never mind the cold. Soon after he arrives at Fort Belogorsk, Grinyov falls in love with Masha, the beautiful young daughter of his captain. Then Pugachev, leader of the Cossack rebellion, surrounds the fort. Resistance, he has made it clear, will be met with death. At once a fairy tale and a thrilling historical novel, this singularly Russian work of the imagination is also a timeless, universal, and very winning story of how love and duty can summon pluck and luck to confront calamity.

Eugene Onegin is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead of their literature. Set in 1820s imperial Russia, Pushkin's novel in verse follows the emotions and destiny of three men - Onegin the bored fop, Lensky the minor elegiast, and a stylized Pushkin himself - and the fates and affections of three women - Tatyana the provincial beauty, her sister Olga, and Pushkin's mercurial Muse. Engaging, full of suspense, and varied in tone, it also portrays a large cast of other characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin was Pushkin's own favourite work, and it shows him attempting to transform himself from a romantic poet into a realistic novelist. This new translation seeks to retain both the literal sense and the poetic music of the original, and capture the poem's spontaneity and wit. The introduction examines several ways of reading the novel, and text is richly annotated. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.