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.

Goncharov was the leading Russian writer of the 1850s and, as the author of The Same Old Story, was regarded as “the real heir to Nikolai Gogol”. But the publication of Turgenev’s first full-length novel, A Nest of the Gentry, in 1859, at around the same time as Goncharov’s Oblomov, which had been more than ten years in the making, suddenly changed the public’s perception. Turgenev’s success was eyed with suspicion by his rival, who started to believe that his work in progress, Malinovka Heights, had been plagiarized by his former friend. Goncharov had in fact discussed in detail with Turgenev the plot of his new novel, and the latter later admitted that, being very impressionable, he may have been influenced by some of its elements, but his friend’s charges went further: he accused the younger writer of stealing his ideas, his characters and even some of his plotlines. As Turgenev’s success increased over the years, so did Goncharov’s resentment, and the two novelists, although later reconciled, stopped communicating with each other. An Uncommon Story, published posthumously in 1924, contrary to its author’s wishes, is an extraordinary document that lays bare the jealousies felt but rarely expressed by writers, and an eternal monument to literary paranoia.

Filled with dreams of pursuing a career as a poet, the young Alexander Aduev moves from the country to St Petersburg, where he takes up lodgings next to his uncle Pyotr, a shrewd and world-weary businessman. As his ideals are challenged by disappointment in the fields of love, friendship and poetical ambition, Alexander must decide whether to return to the homely values he has left behind or adapt to the ruthless rules and morals of city life. Told in the author's trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story - Goncharov's first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years - is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.