Search results for ""author stephen pearl""

It is a winter evening, and Yegor Aduyev, the scion of a wealthy family from the landed gentry, slips into the house of Baron Neyleyn with the intention of asking his beautiful daughter, the eighteen-year-old Yelena, to be his wife. Will the besotted lover be successful in his pursuit or will the young coquette - who seems at times to reciprocate his feelings, but who lavished lingering looks on two dashing princes during a recent ball - shatter his hopes, his dreams and his entire world? A Serendipitous Error, written in 1839, when Goncharov was still in his twenties, is accompanied here by another early novella, An Evil Malady and a short fictional fragment. Taken together, these stories - translated for the first time into English - are further proof of the eclectic narrative skills of the celebrated author of Oblomov.

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Filled with dreams of pursuing a career as a poet, the young Alexander Aduev moves from the country to St Petersburg, where he takes up lodgings next to his uncle Pyotr, a shrewd and world-weary businessman. As his ideals are challenged by disappointment in the fields of love, friendship and poetical ambition, Alexander must decide whether to return to the homely values he has left behind or adapt to the ruthless rules and morals of city life. Told in the author's trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story - Goncharov's first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years - is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.

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After his university studies and a short stint in the army and the civil service, thirty-something Boris Pavlovich Raisky enjoys the life of an artist, frequenting St Petersburg’s elegant circles, dabbing at his paintings, playing a little music and entertaining thoughts of writing a novel. But for a man like him, who has achieved nothing so far and by his own admission is “not born to work”, the bustle of the capital proves too much, so he decides to visit his country estate of Malinovka. There he hopes to rediscover the joys of a simpler and more authentic life – but when he becomes emotionally involved with his beautiful cousin Vera and meets the dangerous freethinker Mark Volokhov, the scene is set for a chain of events that will lead to disappointment, confrontation and, ultimately, tragedy. Conceived twenty years before its initial publication in 1869, and regarded by its author as his best work, Malinovka Heights (previously translated in English as The Precipice) is Goncharov’s crowning achievement as a novelist and a triumph of psychological insight. Here presented for the first time in unabridged form in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, Goncharov’s final novel deserves to be reassessed as one of the most important classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature.

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First published in 1859, Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, comparable in its stature to such masterpieces as Gogol’s Dead Souls, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. The book centres on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman and the reproaches of his friend, the hard-working Stoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments. Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov – here presented in Stephen Pearl’s award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years – is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.

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This fascinating collection of letters, notes, and miscellanea from the archives of the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum sheds new light on the world of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Most of these documents have never before been available in English, and they reveal the composer’s daily concerns, private thoughts, and playful sense of humor. Often intimate and sometimes bawdy, these texts also offer a new perspective on Tchaikovsky’s upbringing, his relations with family members, his patriotism, and his homosexuality, collectively contributing to a greater understanding of a major artist who had a profound impact on Russian culture and society. This is an essential compendium for cultural and social historians as well as musicologists and music lovers.

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