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.

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.

Set during the Pugachov rebellion against Catherine the Great, The Captain's Daughter was Pushkin's only completed novel and remains one of his most popular works. The inexperienced and impetuous young nobleman Pyotr Grinyev is sent on military service to a remote fortress, where he falls in love with Masha, Captain Mironov's daughter - but then the ruthless Cossack Pugachov lays siege to the stronghold, setting in motion a tragic train of events. This volume also contains another work by Pushkin on the same theme, A History of Pugachov, which presents an impartial, meticulously researched history of the revolt, but was regarded in aristocratic circles as subversive on its publication. Together, these two works provide a fascinating insight into the character of the peasant who tried to overthrow an empress, written with the clarity and insight of Russia's greatest poet.

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."

Known as Russia's greatest poet, Pushkin was equally at ease working in other literary forms. The prose collected here includes "The Captain's Daughter," which chronicles the Pugachev Rebellion of 1770, "The Negro of Peter the Great," and "Dubrovsky."

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.