A new collection of the renowned Russian writer's best short work, including a masterful translation of the famous title story. Nikolai Leskov is the strangest of the great Russian writers of the nineteenth century. His work is closer to the oral traditions of narrative than that of his contemporaries, and served as the inspiration for Walter Benjamin's great essay "The Storyteller," in which Benjamin contrasts the plotty machinations of the modern novel with the strange, melancholy, but also worldly-wise yarns of an older, slower era that Leskov remained in touch with. The title story is a tale of illicit love and multiple murder that could easily find its way into a Scottish ballad and did go on to become the most popular of Dmitri Shostakovich's operas. The other stories, all but one newly translated, present the most focused and finely rendered collection of this indispensable writer currently available in English.
Nikolai Leskov's writing exploded the conventions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Here is the other Russia, mythical and untamed: an uneasy synthesis of Orthodoxy and Old Believers, a land populated by soldiers and monks, serfs and princes, Tartars and gypsies—a vast country brimming with the promise of magic. These seventeen tales, some rooted in the oral tradition, others cast as sophisticated anecdotes, are all told in the voices of storytellers addressing their audience—allowing us, as readers, to join a group of listeners. Innovative in form and rich in wordplay, the narratives unfurl in startlingly modern ways. The great gift of this new translation allows us to hear all the nuances of Leskov’s brilliant language.
Bored and childless, Katerina Ismailov lives with her husband, Zinovy, under the cruel rule of her father-in-law, Boris. When Boris and Zinovy are both called away from their estate on urgent business, Katerina’s attentions soon turn to Sergei, the newly-arrived farmhand – and thus begins Nikolai Leskov’s perfectly formed tale of lust, murder, guilt and revenge.
Five great stories from one of the most quintessentially Russian of writers, Nikolai Leskov. In the best of Leskov's stories, as in almost no others apart from those of Gogol, we can hear the voice of nineteenth-century Russia. An outsider by birth and instinct, Leskov is one of the most undeservedly neglected figures in Russian literature. He combined a profoundly religious spirit with a fascination for crime, an occasionally lurid imagination and a great love for the Russian vernacular. This volume includes five of his greatest stories, including the masterful Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was born in 1831 in Gorokhovo, Oryol Province and was orphaned early. In 1860 he became a journalist and moved to Petersburg where he published his first story. He subsequently wrote a number of folk legends and Christmas tales, along with a few anti-nihilistic novels which resulted in isolation from the literary circles of his day. He died in 1895. David McDuff is a translator of Russian and Nordic literature. His translations of nineteenth and twentieth century Russian prose classics (including works by Dostoyevsky,Tolstoy, Bely and Babel) are published by Penguin.
A new translation of the hilarious picaresque about a man with an indomitable spirit The Enchanted Wanderer is a Russian Candide with a revolutionary edge, a picaresque that features a fast-talking monk named Ivan who is at war, it seems, with every level of society. Working as a carriage man for a Count, Ivan accidentally causes the death of a monk, which leads to his being ostracized by the local peasantry . . . until the dead monk returns as a ghost to guide him through trouble upon trouble.
Tsar Alexander I of Russia, while visiting England with his servant Platov is shown a number of impressive modern inventions. Platov insists that things in Russia are much better but then they are shown a mechanical flea as small as a crumb with a key to wind it up that can only be seen through a microscope. Nicolas orders Platov to find a Russian to beat the English at this game and Platov travels to Tula to find a gunsmith to do the job. This novella is a gem of Russian literature. It is one of Leskov’s finest works and marks him as ingenious storyteller and stylistic virtuoso.
Никола́й Семёнович Леско́в (4 [16] февраля 1831, село Горохово, Орловская губерния -- 21 февраля [5 марта] 1895, Санкт-Петербург) -- русский писатель и публицист, мемуарист. «Лескова русские люди признают самым русским из русских писателей и который всех глубже и шире знал русский народ таким, каков он есть», -- писал Д. П. Святополк-Мирский (1926). Николай Семёнович Лесков родился 4 [16] февраля 1831 года в селе Горохово Орловского уезда (ныне село Старое Горохово Свердловского района Орловской области). Отец Лескова, Семён Дмитриевич Лесков (1789--1848), выходец из духовной среды, по словам Николая Семёновича, был «...большой, замечательный умник и дремучий семинарист». Порвав с духовной средой, он поступил на службу в Орловскую уголовную палату, где дослужился до чинов, дававших право на потомственное дворянство, и, по свидетельству современников, приобрёл репутацию проницательного следователя, способного распутывать сложные дела. Мать, Мария Петровна Лескова (урождённая Алферьева) (1813--1886) была дочерью обедневшего московского дворянина. Одна из её сестёр была замужем за состоятельным орловским помещиком, другая -- за богатым англичанином. Младший брат, Алексей, (1837--1909) стал врачом, имел учёную степень доктора медицинских наук. (wikipedia.org)
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