Fortune's Fool [Mass Market Paperback]

Ivan Turgenev (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2003

Fortune's Fool had its Broadway premiere a century and a half after it was written (1848) and proceeded to win two Tony Awards for the highly acclaimed performances of its stars, Alan Bates and Frank Langella, as well as a Tony nomination for best play.

Set in the Russian countryside of grand houses and serfs, the play depicts the tragicomic events precipitated by the return of a young heiress to her family estate. As the members of the household bait and react to each other, the first act ends in a stunning revelation that will impact all the principals. In the bittersweet conclusion, everyone must pick up the pieces and move on with their lives.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reshaped in Mike Poulton''s well-spoken adaptation . . . Fortune''s Fool is blessed with the sort of dazzling, quick-stroke character portraits one associates with Turgenev." (Ben Brantley, The New York Times)

"A mix of wit and heart that many of today''s comic writers would do well to study." (Elysa Gardner, USA Today)

About the Author

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in 1818 in the Province of Orel, and suffered during his childhood from a tyrannical mother. After the family had moved to Moscow in 1827 he entered Petersburg University where he studied philosophy. When he was nineteen he published his first poems and, convinced that Europe contained the source of real knowledge, went to the University of Berlin. After two years he returned to Russia and took his degree at the University of Moscow. In 1843 he fell in love with Pauline Garcia-Viardot, a young Spanish singer, who influenced the rest of his life; he followed her on her singing tours in Europe and spent long periods in the French house of herself and her husband, both of whom accepted him as a family friend. He sent his daughter by a sempstress to be brought up among the Viardot children. After 1856 he lived mostly abroad, and he became the first Russian writer to gain a wide reputation in Europe; he was a well-known figure in Parisian literary circles, where his friends included Flaubert and the Goncourt brothers, and an honorary degree was conferred on him at Oxford. His series of six novels reflect a period of Russian life from 1830s to the 1870s: they are Rudin (1855), A House of Gentlefolk (1858), On the Eve (1859; a Penguin Classic), Fathers and Sons (1861), Smoke (1867) and Virgin Soil (1876). He also wrote plays, which include the comedy A Month in the Country; short stories and Sketches from a Hunter’s Album (a Penguin Classic); and literary essays and memoirs. He died in Paris in 1883 after being ill for a year, and was buried in Russia.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 110 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585674516
• ISBN-13: 978-1585674510
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,916,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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