Customer Reviews

Great Russian Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

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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.

'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.

The Dover Thrift Editions are great affordable collections of some of the world's literary masterpieces. Here we are treated to 12 Russian short stories by some renowned Russian masters and less familiar authors. The stories featured are:
"The Queen of Spades" - Alexander Pushkin
"The Overcoat" - Nikolai Gogol
"The District Doctor" - Ivan S Turgenev
"White Nights" - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"How Much Land Does a Man Need?" - Leo Tolstoy
"The Clothesmender" - Nicholay Leskov
"The Signal" - Vsevolod M Garshin
"The Lady with the Toy Dog" - Anton Chekhov
"The White Mother" - Theodor Sologub
"Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" - Maxim Gorky
"The Outrage - A True Story" - Alexander Kuprin
"Lazarus" - Leonid Andreyev

This is a nice volume for not only students of Russian literature, but also anyone interested in the genre. The only major flaw in this collection is that the names of the translators are not included.

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.

Fantastic - the entire volume, that is. My favorite would be "The Lady With The Toy Dog" by Chekov. These stories vary in length from extremely short to moderately short. They are perfect for nighttime reading, when I am winding down and don't want to pause in the middle of a full-length novel. Some stories were more interesting than others, but I can't say that I disliked any of them. I actually `discovered' a couple of `new' authors to look into.

Of all the `international' short story collections, the Russian collection is my favorite.

I have quite a comprehensive collection of Russian literature, including scads of Tolstoy (even if Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester finds him trivial [but he's just a TV character and, consequently, somewhat trivial himself]), and I would be hard-pressed to suggest a better--or higher-caliber--introduction to the art form than Best Russian Short Stories. No, the editing isn't that great (although typos were actually rather infrequent) and, no, the choice of typeface is poor and, no, they didn't put a whole lot of effort into composing what one might consider a handsome volume--but this is all icing on the pineapple. (I forgot the cake while busying myself turning the pineapples upside-down so that the cake would turn out right. It's funny, but upside-down pineapple chunks bear a strong resemblance to rightside-upside pineapple chunks.) This is a wonderful collection, and one or two of the stories were altogether new to me. I apologize, but I had never read Andreyev's Lazarus, and I am still puzzling over why he compares the rising of the sun to two humongous bare feet tracking over the parched wastes (?). I have yet to figure out why Garshin is so fascinated with shades of red. I also don't think Potapenko's Dethroned was a particularly good story, and, yeah, I suppose some superior Chekhov selections could have been elected (selected?). But you can't please everyone, and you can't expect that--in a given collection of nineteen stories--all nineteen will appeal to Bruce David Wilner as top of the line. This is about as top-of-the-line as it gets. Bravo, tale selectors! Better luck next time, physical editors!

A good selection with no information about the translators. Not as clumsy or mistake ridden as some of the books in this series. OK as an introduction.