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 & 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 & 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 & was orphaned early. In 1860 he became a journalist & moved to Petersburg where he published his first story. He subsequently wrote a number of folk legends & 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 Mc Duff is a translator of Russian & Nordic literature. His translations of nineteenth & twentieth century Russian prose classics (including works by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Bely & Babel) are published by Penguin.