Product Description

This volume contains new translations of four of Pushkin's best works of fiction. The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories, in which Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. The Tales of Belkin are witty parodies of sentimentalism, while Peter the Great's Blackamoor is an early experiment with recreating the past. The Captain's Daughter is a novel-length masterpiece which combines historical fiction in the manner of Sir Walter Scott with the devices of the Russian fairy-tale. The Introduction provides close readings of the stories and places them in their European literary context.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #277962 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
`He is a great story-teller, the Toby Litt of his day, you might say, and this translation knocks all the others I have seen (two) into a cocked hat. Terrific.' Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

`The Queen of Spades is surely Pushkin's prose masterpiece, one of the greatest short stories ever written and the source of Tchaikovsky's opera.' The Irish Times (Dublin)

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

About the Author
Andrew Kahn is Fellow and Tutor in Russian at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and University Lecturer in Russian in the University of Oxford. His previous publications include articles on Russian poetry and eighteenth-century Russian literature. Alan Myers has translated a wide variety of contemporary Russian prose, including poems, essays and plays by Joseph Brodksy. His translations of Dostoevsky's The Idiot and A Gentle Creature and Other Stories are published in World's Classics.

Customer Reviews

Make sure the reviews correspond to the edition!
I wish to make it clear that the 2001 review published below when I was at Oberlin College is NOT of this Oxford World Classics edition-- with which I am unfamiliar-- but rather of a previous Dover Thrift Edition.

I am shocked that Amazon places reviews of different translated editions of the same title(s) interchangably.

-David Shengold
Philadelphia PA

Six short stories - Good Introduction to Alexander Pushkin
This Dover Thrift edition - The Queen of Spades and Other Stories - offers an enjoyable introduction to Alexander Pushkin, an early nineteenth century Russian poet and writer. This collection includes Pushkin's popular The Queen of Spades and his five short stories published under the title The Tales of the Late P. Belkin. The translation was by T. Keane, originally published in 1894 by G. Bell & Sons, London.

The Queen of Spades is a haunting story of one man's obsession with gambling. Hermann, German by birth but a young officer in the Russian military, is notable among his fellow officers in St. Petersburg for his restraint: "He has never had a card in his hand in his life; he never in his life had a wager, and yet he sits here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play". Hermann becomes intrigued with a tale of a closely held secret, one that reveals a bidding sequence that always wins.

Unlike the title story, the other five stories have settings in rural Russia at great distance from cosmopolitan Moscow and St. Petersburg. Apparently Pushkin originally published these stories under a pseudonym. P. Belkin, supposedly a somewhat mysterious individual that liked to collect tales.

An Amateur Peasant Girl: The wealthy landowner Ivan Petrovitch Berestoff, feuds with his nearest neighbor, Gregory Ivanovitch Mouromsky. Unknown to either, Mouromsky's daughter, Lizaveta Gregorievna, while dressed as a peasant girl, has attracted the attention of Berestoff's son, leading to considerable confusion.

The Shot: In a formal Russian duel one duelist, chosen by chance, fires first from a fixed distance at the other. If the first duelist misses his opponent (or does not critically wound him), the second duelist now fires. In this tale the second duelist, a superb marksman, holds his fire, but with the understanding that at some future time he will return and kill his opponent.

The Snowstorm: This highly contrived story is singularly Russian. Love, chance, and honor ultimately mitigate the unexpected consequences of a senseless prank by a young military officer.

The Postmaster: This story is perhaps less contrived, and yet it still relies heavily on coincidences. The postmaster is not a postman, but is one that manages a way station for resting horses and travelers.

The Coffin Maker: In what appears to be a dream, an undertaker is harassed by his previous clients, now all dead and buried, who return to his home for festivities. The ending is somewhat ambiguous.

Excellent Introduction to Pushkin
From what I can learn this present volume ISBN 0192839543 from 1999 replaces ISBN 0192832131 from 1997.That volume is almost identical but is just 273 pages versus the present. I am not clear on all the changes but the books contains similar material and identical covers.

Roughly, here is the contents:

Introduction
Bibliography
Life of Pushkin
Milestones of the Pugachev Uprising

The Puskin Stories:

Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin
- The Shot, 12 pages
- The Snowstorm, 12 pages
- The Undertaker, 7 pages
- The Stationmaster, 12 pages
- The Lady Peasant, 18 pages

The Queen of Spades, 29 pages

The Captain's Daughter: a novella, 108 pages

Peter The Great's Blackamoor, 35 pages, an unfinshed work.

Then summary Notes.

Comments:

The book contains a very long introduction to the works and has many notes at the end. In reading just the present book, you will receive a good idea of the general works of Pushkin - abbreviated - and a lot of detail on the present works.

The stories are excellent, well written, and one is instantly converted to being a Pushkin fan. I am not a literary expert but I have read works by Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, etc, and clearly one sees the connection in style and subject matter. It is easy to see how Tolstoy drew inspiration from these works.

The stories are grounded mostly in realism and 18th and 19th century historical events although there are romantic touches and Queen of Spades has elements of the supernatural.

Overall, these are excellent stories that bring a smile to one's face.