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Compiled and Edited by THOMAS SELTZER. ... Read more

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Shocking playboy Pushkin!
This is the first publication of "Pushkin's Secret Diary" in Russian (it is currently published in 24 languages). The main character of the Diary is Pushkin himself showing to the reader in unusual way - his multiple affairs, thoughts abou life, nature of sin, love and creativity, difficulty of poet's life which eventually lead to a tragic ending. Regardless of believability of Diary's authenticity, this book is undoubtedly one of the most scandalous examples of Russian erotica. Greatly recommend. ... Read more

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This anthology includes stories from such well-known authors as Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, and Leo Tolstoy. ... Read more

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A Story of Russian Love ... Read more

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Shocked
"Language: English." The irony is painful to anyone who cherishes either Pushkin or the art of translation, which in the case of ONEGIN has been so hotly debated by Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, among many others. Who translated this strange document? Who gave it this maudlin subtitle? Babette Deutsch, Walter Arndt, Charles Johnston, James Falen, Vladimir Nabokov? Each of these ONEGINS is different, and the poor Amazon customer has no idea what s/he will receive. Pozor! ... Read more

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Writing with lyrical simplicity, Pushkin laid the foundations of an indigenous national literature.
Considered in his day Russia's greatest poet,Pushkin was famous not only for works thatinspired ballets and operas, such as Eugene Onegin and Boris Godunov, but for hisstories--"The Queen of Spades" andmany others--all of which are collected here ina translation that captures their grace andvitality. ... Read more

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Responding to Bruce D. Wilner "Bruce David Wilner" who gave Pishkin two stars
The Complete Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin For me who reads Pushkin in English and my Russian friends reading the originals alike, the uniqueness of Pushkin is in a rare combination of deepest philosophy (amazing in such a very young person) with brilliant, sparkling lightness and tempo. The book you so arrogantly pushed aside is just a playful little thing, but so delicate, tasteful, and humble (I suspect also a game for Pushkin, the humbleness, which he in fact did no possess).

Without knowing Evgenij Onegin, Little Tragedies, and early poems, one has no right to talk about Pushkin down his long nose. I pity you Bruce David Wilner!

A terrific 'gateway' introduction to Russian literature (details)
This is a repackaging of Norton's 1966 edition, (dark blue softcover) which is the one that I own, 495 pages in length including helpful endnotes.

The early Russian author, Alexand[e]r Sergeyevitch Pushkin (1799-1837) was most renowned for his poetry/plays, particularly: "Boris Godunov" (1825, drama); "Ruslan and Ludmilla" (poem, 1820), and; "Eugene Onegin" (1831, verse novel.) These three works have subsequently gained much world popularity since they have evolved into the appurtenant art of Classical music, orchestrated by some of Russia's most renowned composers:

Boris Godunov

Great Russian Classics

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

If Pushkin ever lacked status as a novelist it was chiefly because he failed to conclude most of these great stories. In fact, of the fifteen tales contained in this anthology, only a few are complete. "The Captain's Daughter" is the finest of these works and, in terms of length it manifests a novella. The remainder fall into a general category of short fiction. Here is the complete list of the stories found here:

The Moor of Peter the Great (unfinished)

A Novel in Letters (unfinished)

The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovitch Belkin
--From the Editor
--The Shot
--The Blizzard
--The Undertaker
--The Postmaster
--The Squire's Daughter (unfinished)

The History of the Village of Gorukhino (unfinished)

Roslavlev (unfinished)

Dubrovsky (unfinished)

The Queen of Spades

Kirdjali

Egyptian Nights (unfinished)

The Captain's Daughter (also features an "alternative" final chapter)

I can easily characterize Pushkin's prose stories by remarking that they are "heroic unsupernatural fairy tales." Most are historically-based and happy endings, (at least in the finished works), appear inevitable. Even in the unfinished tales the astute reader can see that Pushkin was working towards "happily ever after" type conclusions. And for that element, there may be reason to retrospectively criticize Pushkin; however, the Russian people revere him still because he has given them something noteworthy to cling to, especially considering that this is a country with a tragic history where daily life was often dreadful for the masses.

Secondarily, Pushkin was a pioneer in this realm and of his era. In Pushkin's time Russia had very little to offer in the way of "literature." By forging an erudite basis for the subsequent authors of Russian literature's "Golden Age," Pushkin became the very foundation from which Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov, Gogol, and many others could springboard.

Finally, if Pushkin's writing seems immature when viewed through contemporary eyes, one is thus directed to keep in mind that not only did he represent a new frontier in Russian writing, he also had to be mindful of the authoritarian régime which had prevailed (and would continue for a time) in his country for hundreds of years. In other words he had to worry about the censors and consequently, he had good reason to be concerned for his own skin.

In the end Pushkin's stories can serve a singular terrific purpose: it's a great place to commence one's reading of Russian literature. These works are straightforward and will make total sense to western readers. I now wish that I had read Pushkin prior to delving into the more mature and intricate literature of the giants which I have already mentioned.

Sadly, Pushkin was killed in a duel where he faced off against Baron d'Anthés, a man who had purportedly become the paramour of Pushkin's wife. While d'Anthés was slightly wounded, his shot at Pushkin proved fatal to the great poet who died two days following the encounter.

The translation of Pushkin's prose works into English was artfully and masterfully effected here by Gillon R. Aitken. It's a great edition and I highly recommend it.

so this is literature . . .
Gentlemen, I am not impressed. I understand that Russians worship Pushkin as the be-all and end-all of their literary language, assigning him much the same significance as we do to Shakespeare or Germans, Goethe. If Pushkin is the best they have to offer, they'd better do some serious searching: perhaps a contest for a $10 prize would ferret out something deeper. True, Pushkin is a decent writer--and I recognize that, having a very sketchy command of Russian and not having read his prose in the Russian original, I cannot begin to capture a fair idea of what he actually sounds like--but I was utterly underwhelmed. And I gave the man a fair whirl: I read his complete tales of Belkin (of which, to be fair, The Undertaker was a reasonably funny stint) and a supposedly entertaining novella, The Captain's Daughter. I have been exposed to a wide array of Russian writers--some titanic, some less known, some quite obscure--and I have yet to find cause to jump up and down. Sorry.

The Best of Them All
Virtually anybody who prepares a list of the five greatest writers in world history will include at least one Russian on the list.If there is only one, that one should be Pushkin.

Unfortunately, Pushkin is given short shrift outside of his homeland.The reason is not hard to explain - most of his work is poetry, which translates badly.What's worse, even in translation his poetry wouldn't read any better than, say, Lermontov, whereas the difference would be obvious to a Russian, just as the difference between Shakespeare and Marlowe would be to an English speaker.

Pushkin's prose works provide a basis for remedying the situation. His stories are disarmingly simple and readable, just like his poetry.Yet practically every major Russian novelist of the nineteenth century acknowledged his debt to Pushkin as a model and crafter of prose, as well as a source of themes.This includes Gogol, Goncharov, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

My personal favorites are "The Captain's Daughter", "The Moor of Peter the Great", which is about Pushkin's own great grandfather, who was Ethiopian, and most of all "The Queen of Spades", which practically singlehandedly created the genre of stories of the supernatural.Any one of the stories can be done in one sitting (well, maybe one long sitting for a few of them).Do yourself a favor and make the acquaintance of one of the best writers that ever lived.

Pushkin's Genius Never Fails to Give Us Pleasure!
Given the crowded field of the 19th century writers of the Russian Empire, Pushkin is not appreciated enough. And it's understandable - with Gogol, Dostoievski, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Goncharov and Chekhov around, Pushkin gets squeezed out. His prose and his plays are wonderful to read even in translation, and if you're lucky enough to be able to read Russian, his poetry is simply unsurpassed among the Slavic poets, even the Polish Mickiewicz and the Ukrainian Shevchenko. Pushkin the poet belongs with Shakespeare, Goethe and Byron. Pushkin's stories are fun to read, and are a good introduction to the big league Russian Empire writers that follow him. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Two translations are better than one.
Pushkin Threefold is so named because each of the poems featured is presented three times: in metric translation, literal translation, and in Russian.It's a wonderful work because, barring actual fluency in Russian, comparing multiple translations is the closest English-speakers can get to the meaning of the original poems.It loses a star only because some of the poems have been better translated elsewhere.However, it maintains four stars because I've never found any single book which contained _all_ the best translations. ... Read more