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Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
First published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of
Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces
as Gogol's Dead Souls, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky's
Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich
Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who
spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic
daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely
swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to
an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a
woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz,
Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up
to his commitments. Rich in situational comedy, psychological
complexity and social satire, Oblomov - here presented in Stephen
Pearl's award-winning translation, the first major English-language
version of the novel in more than fifty years - is a timeless novel
and a monument to human idleness.
It is a winter evening, and Yegor Aduyev, the scion of a wealthy
family from the landed gentry, slips into the house of Baron
Neilein with the intention of asking his beautiful daughter, the
eighteen-year-old Yelena, to be his wife. Will the besotted lover
be successful in his pursuit or will the young coquette – who
seems at times to reciprocate his feelings, but who lavished
lingering looks on two dashing princes during a recent ball –
shatter his hopes, his dreams and his entire world? A Serendipitous
Error, an early novella of 1839, written when Goncharov was still
in his twenties, is accompanied here by Two Incidents at Sea, a
story penned almost twenty years later and based on two dangerous
scrapes the author survived during his recent voyage on the frigate
Pallada. Taken together, these two stories – translated for the
first time into English by Stephen Pearl – are further proof of
the eclectic narrative skills of the celebrated author of Oblomov.
After his university studies and a short stint in the army and the
civil service, thirty-something Boris Pavlovich Raisky enjoys the
life of an artist, frequenting St Petersburg's elegant circles,
dabbing at his paintings, playing a little music and entertaining
thoughts of writing a novel. But for a man like him, who has
achieved nothing so far and by his own admission is "not born to
work", the bustle of the capital proves too much, so he decides to
visit his country estate of Malinovka. There he hopes to rediscover
the joys of a simpler and more authentic life - but when he becomes
emotionally involved with his beautiful cousin Vera and meets the
dangerous freethinker Mark Volokhov, the scene is set for a chain
of events that will lead to disappointment, confrontation and,
ultimately, tragedy. Conceived twenty years before its initial
publication in 1869, and regarded by its author as his best work,
Malinovka Heights (previously translated in English as The
Precipice) is Goncharov's crowning achievement as a novelist and a
triumph of psychological insight. Here presented for the first time
in unabridged form in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl,
Goncharov's final novel deserves to be reassessed as one of the
most important classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature.
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