After enlisting in a revolutionary terrorist organization, the university student Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov is entrusted with a highly dangerous mission: to plant a bomb and assassinate a major government figure. But the real central character of the novel is the city of Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth century, caught in the grip of political agitation and social unrest. Intertwining the worlds of history and myth, and parading a cast of unforgettable characters, Petersburg is a story of apocalypse and redemption played out through family dysfunction, conspiracy and murder.

Andrei Bely is best known for the modernist masterwork Petersburg, a paradigmatic example of how modern writers strove to evoke the fragmentation of language, narrative, and consciousness. In the early twentieth century, Bely embarked on his life as an artist with texts he called "symphonies"-works experimenting with genre and sound, written in a style that shifts among prosaic, poetic, and musical. This book presents Bely's four Symphonies-"Dramatic Symphony," "Northern Symphony," "The Return," and "Goblet of Blizzards"-fantastically strange stories that capture the banality of life, the intimacy of love, and the enchantment of art. The Symphonies are quintessential works of modernist innovation in which Bely developed an evocative mythology and distinctive aesthetics. Influenced by Russian Symbolism, Bely believed that the role of modern artists was to imbue seemingly small details with cosmic significance. The Symphonies depict the drabness of daily life with distinct irony and satire-and then soar out of turn-of-the-century Moscow into the realm of the infinite and eternal. They conjure worlds that resemble our own but reveal elements of artifice and magic, hinting at mystical truths and the complete transfiguration of life. Showcasing the protean quality of Bely's language and storytelling, Jonathan Stone's translation of the Symphonies features some of the most captivating and beguiling writing of Russia's Silver Age.

Andrei Bely's novel Petersburg is considered one of the four greatest prose masterpieces of the 20th century. In this new edition of the best-selling translation, the reader will have access to the translators' detailed commentary, which provides the necessary historical and literary context for understanding the novel, as well as a foreword by Olga Matich, acclaimed scholar of Russian literature. Set in 1905 in St. Petersburg, a city in the throes of sociopolitical conflict, the novel follows university student Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov, who has gotten entangled with a revolutionary terrorist organization with plans to assassinate a government official–Nikolai's own father, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov. With a sprawling cast of characters, set against a nightmarish city, it is all at once a historical, political, philosophical, and darkly comedic novel.

Andrei Bely is best known for the modernist masterwork Petersburg, a paradigmatic example of how modern writers strove to evoke the fragmentation of language, narrative, and consciousness. In the early twentieth century, Bely embarked on his life as an artist with texts he called "symphonies"-works experimenting with genre and sound, written in a style that shifts among prosaic, poetic, and musical. This book presents Bely's four Symphonies-"Dramatic Symphony," "Northern Symphony," "The Return," and "Goblet of Blizzards"-fantastically strange stories that capture the banality of life, the intimacy of love, and the enchantment of art. The Symphonies are quintessential works of modernist innovation in which Bely developed an evocative mythology and distinctive aesthetics. Influenced by Russian Symbolism, Bely believed that the role of modern artists was to imbue seemingly small details with cosmic significance. The Symphonies depict the drabness of daily life with distinct irony and satire-and then soar out of turn-of-the-century Moscow into the realm of the infinite and eternal. They conjure worlds that resemble our own but reveal elements of artifice and magic, hinting at mystical truths and the complete transfiguration of life. Showcasing the protean quality of Bely's language and storytelling, Jonathan Stone's translation of the Symphonies features some of the most captivating and beguiling writing of Russia's Silver Age.

Andrei Bely's masterpiece, Petersburg is a vivid, striking story set at the heart of the 1905 Russian revolution. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian by David McDuff with an introduction by Adam Thirlwell. St Petersburg, 1905. An impressionable young university student, Nikolai, becomes involved with a revolutionary terror organization, which plans to assassinate a high government official with a time bomb. But the official is Nikolai's cold, unyielding father, Apollon, and in twenty-four hours the bomb will explode. Petersburg is a story of suspense, family dysfunction, patricide, conspiracy and revolution. It is also an impressionistic, exhilarating panorama of the city itself, watched over by the bronze statue of Peter the Great, as it tears itself apart. Considered by writers such as Vladimir Nabokov to be one of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century, Bely's richly textured, darkly comic and symbolic novel pulled apart the traditional techniques of storytelling and presaged the dawn of a new form of literature. This acclaimed translation captures all the idiosyncrasies and rhythms of Bely's extraordinary prose. It is accompanied by an introduction by Adam Thirwell discussing the novel's themes, extraordinary style and influence. Andrei Bely (1880-1934), born Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, was educated at Moscow University where he studied science and philosophy, before turning his focus to literature. In 1904 he published his first collection of poems, Gold in Azure, which was followed in 1909 by his first novel, The Silver Dove. Bely's most famous novel, Petersburg, was published in 1916. His work is considered to have heavily influenced several literary schools, most notably Symbolism, and his impact on Russian writing has been compared to that of James Joyce on the English speaking world. If you enjoyed Petersburg, you might like Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, also available in Penguin Classics. 'The one novel that sums up the whole of Russia' Anthony Burgess

Steeped in the social and religious culture of prerevolutionary Russia, Andrey Bely's first novel is inspired by theosophy, the myth of Dionysus, and the author's own thoughts on the relationship between artistic and religious creation. The story of an idle intellectual who pursues transcendence, The Silver Dove is also Bely's study of the unbridgeable chasm between his country's Westernized intelligentsia and the mysterious, apocalyptic passions of its peasants.

Dissatisfied with the life of the intellectual, the poet Daryalsky joins a rural mystic sect, the Silver Doves. The locals, and in particular the peasant woman Matryona, are fascinated by the dashing stranger. Daryalsky is taken in by the Doves' intimacy with the mystical and spiritual -- and by Matryona. Under the influence of the cult leader, the carpenter Kudeyarov, Daryalsky is ruthlessly used in a bid to produce a sacred child -- a dove who will "descend on silvered plummage" and usher in a new age.

Bely, fascinated by the theosophical beliefs of the nineteenth century, places his hero at the center of a cycle in which elements of the past are eternally present, suggesting a parallel between Daryalsky and the figures of Dionysus and Christ. In time, Daryalsky disappoints the Doves and must face their all-too-mortal suspicions and jealousies, as well as his own doubts. As the story concludes, Bely invokes the primitive rituals of the bacchanals -- and the symbols of the Crucifixion -- to reveal Daryalsky's dire fate.