Great Russian Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

by Leonid Andreyev (Author), Anton Chekhov (Author), Fyodor Dostoevsky (Author), Vsevolod M. Garshin (Author), Nikolai Gogol (Author), Maxim Gorky (Author), Alexander Kuprin (Author), Nikolai Leskov (Author), Alexander Pushkin (Author), Paul Negri (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Twelve powerful works of fiction for students of Russian literature and devotees of great writing. Contents: Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades," Gogol's "The Overcoat," Turgenev's "The District Doctor," Dostoyevsky's "White Nights," Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?," plus "The Clothes Mender" by Leskov, "The Signal" by Garshin, "The Lady with the Toy Dog" by Chekhov, "The White Mother" by Sologub, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" by Gorky, "The Outrage" by Kuprin, and "Lazarus" by Andreyev. Dover original selection.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (July 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 048642992X
• ISBN-13: 978-0486429922
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #486,626 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Who are the translators?, August 23, 2006

By	David R. Scott (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a nice, cheap collection of Russian stories by a wide range of authors from the 19th and early 20th century, including some very nice tales by authors who are less famous (Garshin, Andreyev, Kuprin), in addition to gems by the well-known masters (Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov.) I would especially recommend "The Queen of Spades", a Pushkin ghost story that was turned into the great opera "Pique Dame" by Tchaikovsky, but one I've seldom seen anthologized.

One problem: I found no information in the book about who translated the stories. There are some pretty bad translations in the public domain, especially by Constance Garnett, which were written long ago (under madly intense deadlines in Garnett's case) with stiff, Victorian dialogue and known to contain inaccuracies. So one should not get this book unless one needs a copy -- any copy -- of the stories in the list, many of which can be obtained for free from Project Gutenberg (Gutenberg.org), where the translator is at least usually listed (again, avoid translations by Garnett, and stick with Maude if possible.) And if money is no object up to $10-$15, then one should seek out more modern translations, which tend to be not only more readable, but also more accurate.

Still, any differences in various translations will be slight, so this is a pretty good buy as a small gift for a casual fan of Russian Literature.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stories by great masters, and stories of Incident primarily, August 3, 2008

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

'Dover Editions' do not provide the frills. We do not get a real introduction to the stories, to the Russian story in particular. We do not get notes on the stories. And we do not even get the names of the translators.
But we do get some of the finest of all Russian stories. These include those by the great masters Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gorky. I did not compare translations of the stories with those by well- known translators of Russian Literature.
I focused on reading and enjoying stories by writers whose work I do not know Vsevolod M. Garshin, Theodor Sologub, Alexander I. Kuprin, Leonid Andreyev. Each of these stories has a narrative and characters which held my attention. They were story- stories whose focus seemed to be on incident and outcome- and not in revealing as in Gogol's 'Overcoat' or Chekhov's " Lady with a Dog" complex character and relationships.
I enjoyed most of these stories and believe most readers will also.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best anthology of Russian stories , October 27, 2008

By	Kelly Kovalsky (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Best Russian Short Stories. 19 stories by Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Aleksandr Kuprin, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, ... Fiodor Sologub, Ignatii Potapenko, Leonid

This collection is a stellar selection of some of the best of Russion Short stories. For a sampling of the cream of Russian writing, you cannot do better than this.