The Queen of Spades and Selected Works

<strong><em>The Queen of Spades and Selected Works</em> is a brand new English translation of two of Alexander Pushkin's greatest short stories, 'The Queen of Spades' and 'The Stationmaster', together with the poem 'The Bronze Horseman', extracts from <em>Yevgeny Onegin</em> and <em>Boris Godunov</em>, and a selection of his poetic work.</strong>

'The Queen of Spades' ('Pikovaya dama'), originally published in Russian in 1834, is one of the most famous tales in Russian literature, and inspired the eponymous opera by Tchaikovsky; in 'The Stationmaster' ('Stantsionnyy smotritel''), originally published in Russian in <em>The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin</em> (<em>Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina</em>) in 1830, he reworks the parable of the Prodigal Son; the hugely entertaining 'Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters' is a bawdier early poem; and the deeply moving narrative poem 'The Bronze Horseman', inspired by a St Petersburg statue of Peter the Great, is one of his most influential works. The volume also includes a selection of his best lyric poetry.

Translated by Anthony Briggs, <em>The Queen of Spades and Selected Works</em> is the perfect introduction to Alexander Pushkin's finest work.

<strong>Contents:</strong>

<strong>Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin</strong> ranks as one of Russia's greatest writers. Born in 1799, he published his first poem when he was a teenager, and attained fame in 1820 with his first long poem, <em>Ruslan and Lyudmila</em>. In the late 1820s he found himself the target of government censors, unable to travel or publish at will; during this time, he wrote his most famous play, <em>Boris Godunov</em>, and <em>Yevgeny Onegin</em> (published 1825-1832). 'The Queen of Spades', his most famous prose work, was published in 1834; his best-known poem, 'The Bronze Horseman', appeared after his death (from a wound sustained in a duel) in 1837.

<strong>Anthony Briggs</strong> is one of the world's leading authorities on the work of Pushkin, author of <em>Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study</em> and editor of <em>Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia's Best-Loved Writer</em>. He is also an acclaimed translator from the Russian, whose translations include <em>War and Peace</em>, <em>The Death of Ivan Ilyich</em> and <em>Resurrection</em> by Leo Tolstoy.