Tales of Belkin (Art of the Novel) - Softcover

Alexander Pushkin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933633735 ISBN 13: 9781933633732

Publisher: MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING, 2009

Synopsis

First published anonymously in 1830, Alxander Pushkin's The Tales of Belkin contains his first prose works. Since then, it has become one of the most beloved books in Russian literary history and even became the namesake for Russia's most prestigious annual literary prize - the Belkin Prize. Presented in a sparkling new translation by Josh Billings.

About this title

Review:

"I wanted them all, even those I'd already read."
--Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer

"Small wonders."
--Time Out London

"[F]irst-rate...astutely selected and attractively packaged...indisputably great works."
--Adam Begley, The New York Observer

"I've always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it's the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher's fine 'Art of the Novella' series."
--The New Yorker

"The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They're slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed--tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are."
--KQED (NPR San Francisco)

"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package."
--The Wall Street Journal

About the Author:

Alexander Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow in 1799. Educated by French tutors while learning Russian from the household serfs, he began publishing poems in his early teens and soon gained widespread recognition, especially for his use of vernacular. At 18 he received a government appointment in St. Petersburg and threw himself into cultural life, including associating with radical intellectuals. He published his first major work, the long poem Rusian and Ludmila, in 1820, shortly before being banished from the capital for writing political poems such asOde to Liberty. In 1825 some friends were involved in the Decembrist uprising, and Pushkin's restrictions were tightened. Yet he wrote some of his greatest work in exile, including his playBoris Godunov and his novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin. Finally pardoned by the Tsar, he married Natalya Goncharova in 1831. They became regulars of court society, which soon impoverished Pushkin, and in 1837, scandalous rumors about Natalya prompted him to challenge an alleged paramour to a duel. Wounded, Pushkin died two days later. Fearing a public outpouring at his funeral, the government removed his body in the night, to be buried at his family's distant estate.

Josh Billings is a fiction writer and translator who lives in Maine. He is also the translator of the Melville House edition of The Duel, by Aleksandr Kuprin.

About this edition

• Publisher: MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1933633735
• ISBN 13: 9781933633732
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128