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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Still the benchmark of Russian literature 175 years after its first publication--now in a marvelous new translation
PUSHKIN'S INCOMPARABLE POEM has at its center a young Russian dandy much like Pushkin in his attitudes and habits. Eugene Onegin, bored with the triviality of everyday life, takes a trip to the countryside, where he encounters the young and passionate Tatyana. She falls in love with him but is cruelly rejected. Years later, Eugene Onegin sees the error of his ways, but fate is not on his side. A tragic story about love, innocence, and friendship, this beautifully written tale is a treasure for any fan of Russian literature.

Celebrating three Russian literary greats-Alexander Pushkin, Anna Akhmatova, and Andrei Voznesensky-this collection of their writing presents new translations of a combined 44 poems and includes both Russian and English text. Nearly 20 artworks-from colour monoprints to black-and-white collages, illustrations, and photographs-by Pushkin, Voznesensky, Amadeo Modigliani, Nikolai Tyrsa, and Claire Weissman Wilks are also included, opening an artistic dialogue with the poems and the reader. Alexander Pushkin is, perhaps, the greatest of Russian poets and considered the founder of modern Russian literature. Anna Akhmatova is Russia's singular female poet and perhaps the greatest in Western culture. Andrei Voznesensky was considered one of the most daring writers of the Soviet era, and before his death he was both critically and popularly acclaimed. These three master poets are brought together with masterful translations that engage their many complexities and are a must for personal or academic interests in Russian literature or poetry in general.

Puskin's masterpieces in prose, in sparkling new translations by the award-winning Pevear and Volokhonsky. The father of Russian literature, Pushkin is beloved not only for his poetry but also for his brilliant stories, which range from dramatic narratives of love, obsession and betrayal to lively comic tales, and from satirical epistolary tales to imaginative historical fiction. This volume includes all Pushkin's prose in brilliant new translations, including his masterpieces 'The Queen of Spades', 'The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin' and 'The Captain's Daughter'.

One of the many aspects of Alexander Pushkin's immense contribution to Russian language and literature, and perhaps the one he is most popular for, is his mastery of the love poem, a genre which he perfected like few others before or after him. This volume contains a selection of his most famous and enduring verse explorations of love, such as 'I Loved You', 'Night' and 'I Well Recall a Wondrous Meeting', pieces which are crowning achievements of the European canon and still have the same timeless emotional resonance today.

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.

The Queen of Spades and Selected Works is a brand new English translation of two of Alexander Pushkin's greatest short stories, 'The Queen of Spades' and 'The Stationmaster', together with the poem 'The Bronze Horseman', extracts from Yevgeny Onegin and Boris Godunov, and a selection of his poetic work. 'The Queen of Spades' ('Pikovaya dama'), originally published in Russian in 1834, is one of the most famous tales in Russian literature, and inspired the eponymous opera by Tchaikovsky; in 'The Stationmaster' ('Stantsionnyy smotritel''), originally published in Russian in The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin (Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina) in 1830, he reworks the parable of the Prodigal Son; the hugely entertaining 'Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters' is a bawdier early poem; and the deeply moving narrative poem 'The Bronze Horseman', inspired by a St Petersburg statue of Peter the Great, is one of his most influential works. The volume also includes a selection of his best lyric poetry. Translated by Anthony Briggs, The Queen of Spades and Selected Works is the perfect introduction to Alexander Pushkin's finest work. Contents: 'The Queen of Spades' 'The Stationmaster' Extract from Boris Godunov Extract fromMozart and Salieri 'The Bronze Horseman' 'Tsar Nikita and His Forty Daughters' Extract from Yevgeny Onegin Fourteen lyric poems Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin ranks as one of Russia's greatest writers. Born in 1799, he published his first poem when he was a teenager, and attained fame in 1820 with his first long poem, Ruslan and Lyudmila. In the late 1820s he found himself the target of government censors, unable to travel or publish at will; during this time, he wrote his most famous play, Boris Godunov, and Yevgeny Onegin (published 1825-1832). 'The Queen of Spades', his most famous prose work, was published in 1834; his best-known poem, 'The Bronze Horseman', appeared after his death (from a wound sustained in a duel) in 1837. Anthony Briggs is one of the world's leading authorities on the work of Pushkin, author of Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study and editor of Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia's Best-Loved Writer. He is also an acclaimed translator from the Russian, whose translations include War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy.

WINNER OF THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2020 Alexander Pushkin established what we know as Russian literature. This collection includes his strongly personal lyric verse, which springs spontaneously from his everyday life - his numerous loves, his exile, his hectic life in St Petersburg - while the narrative poems here, from exotic Southern tales to comic parodies and fairy tales of enchanted tsars, display his endless ability to surprise. His landmark work The Bronze Horseman, with its ghostly central figure of Peter the Great, holds the meaning of all Russian history. Antony Wood's translations reveal the variety, inventiveness and perfection of Pushkin's verse.

Text in Arabic. It is a profound, honest and serious exploration of the truth, an analysis of the contradictions of eternal existence," Alexander Pushkin said of his prose work. In the prose, Russia's most famous poet found space to study specific social phenomena that face the universal laws of human life. Over the centuries, critics have called them "ever-contemporary", shaped by an unmatched formulation of harmony, cohesion, and beauty.