Mikhail Lermontov – författare

'After all that - how, you might wonder, could one not become a fatalist?'Lermontov's hero, Pechorin, is a young army officer posted to the Caucasus, where his adventures - amorous and reckless - do nothing to alleviate his boredom and cynicism. World-weary and self-destructive, Pechorin is alienated from those around him yet he is full of passion and romantic ardour, sensitive as well as arrogant. His complex, contradictory character dominates A Hero of Our Time, the first great Russian novel, in which the intricate narrative unfolds episodically, transporting the reader from the breathtaking terrain of the Caucasus to the genteel surroundings of spa resorts. Told in an engaging yet pointedly ironic style, the story expresses Lermontov's own estrangement from the stifling conventions of bourgeois society and the oppression of Russian autocracy, but it also captures a longing for freedom through acts of love and bravery.This new edition also includes Pushkin's Journey to Arzrum, in which Pushkin describes his own experiences of Russia's military campaigns in the Caucasus and which provides a fascinating counterpoint to Lermontov's novel. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Lermontov's only novel was influential for many later 19th century authors, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov. Lermotov's hero, Pechorin, is a dangerous man, Byronic in his wasted gifts and his cynicism, and desperate for any kind of action that will stave off boredom. In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up a portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times.

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time is translated with an introduction and notes by Natasha Randall, and a foreword by Neil LaBute, author of reasons to be pretty, in Penguin Modern Classics.The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled on publication. Its Byronic hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up a portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekhov, holding up a mirror not only to Lermontov's time but also to our own.Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) was a Russian Romantic writer and poet. As a young man Lermontov was an officer in the guards, and was sent to fight in the Caucasus after insulting the Tsar. His dramatic life ended after being shot down in a duel.Ifyou enjoyed A Hero of Our Time, you might like Andrei Bely's Petersburg, also available in Penguin Clasics.'One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper'Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

''After all that - how, you might wonder, could one not become a fatalist?'' Lermontov''s hero, Pechorin, is a young army officer posted to the Caucasus, where his adventures - amorous and reckless - do nothing to alleviate his boredom and cynicism. World-weary and self-destructive, Pechorin is alienated from those around him yet he is full of passion and romantic ardour, sensitive as well as arrogant. His complex, contradictory character dominates A Hero of Our Time, the first great Russian novel, in which the intricate narrative unfolds episodically, transporting the reader from the breathtaking terrain of the Caucasus to the genteel surroundings of spa resorts. Told in an engaging yet pointedly ironic style, the story expresses Lermontov''s own estrangement from the stifling conventions of bourgeois society and the oppression of Russian autocracy, but it also captures a longing for freedom through acts of love and bravery. This new edition also includes Pushkin''s Journey to Arzrum, in which Pushkin describes his own experiences of Russia''s military campaigns in the Caucasus and which provides a fascinating counterpoint to Lermontov''s novel. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

''After all that - how, you might wonder, could one not become a fatalist?'' Lermontov''s hero, Pechorin, is a young army officer posted to the Caucasus, where his adventures - amorous and reckless - do nothing to alleviate his boredom and cynicism. World-weary and self-destructive, Pechorin is alienated from those around him yet he is full of passion and romantic ardour, sensitive as well as arrogant. His complex, contradictory character dominates A Hero of Our Time, the first great Russian novel, in which the intricate narrative unfolds episodically, transporting the reader from the breathtaking terrain of the Caucasus to the genteel surroundings of spa resorts. Told in an engaging yet pointedly ironic style, the story expresses Lermontov''s own estrangement from the stifling conventions of bourgeois society and the oppression of Russian autocracy, but it also captures a longing for freedom through acts of love and bravery. This new edition also includes Pushkin''s Journey to Arzrum, in which Pushkin describes his own experiences of Russia''s military campaigns in the Caucasus and which provides a fascinating counterpoint to Lermontov''s novel. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

In its adventurous happenings–its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues–A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and ’30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin–the archetypal Russian antihero–Lermontov’s novel looks forward to the subsequent glories of a Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.This edition includes a Translator’s Foreword by Vladimir Nabokov, who translated the novel in collaboration with his son, Dmitri Nabokov.(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

From the Hardcover edition.

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA.

First published in 1919, this book presents the text of Lermontov's 1840 poem 'The Novice' in the original Russian. An editorial introduction and detailed textual notes in English are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Russian poetry and the works of Lermontov.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Dueling, kidnapping, and murder combine with drawing-room flirtation, deception, and betrayal to create the intense, thought-provoking narrative of Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time. The novel recounts the adventures of Grigory Pechorin, an enigmatic Russian officer stationed in the Caucasus Mountains in the 1830s. Here he mingles with Russians and mountain tribes-people who clash in the frontier territory in southern Russia. Lermontov tells a story that continues to resonate though time and can still be read in today’s headlines.

'I remain in unchanged admiration for this bold, headstrong, carefree undertaking, a first novel published when the author was twenty-five, which proved to be the first prose masterpiece in Russian' Julian Barnes from his preface.Published in Russian in April 1840, A Hero of Our Time reached English in 1853, under the title 'Sketches of Life in the Caucasus, by a Russe.' Full of towering landscapes and local colour, it can be read as the travelogue of a poet and serving officer, but also as a portrait of the romantic as self-destructive anti-hero.Vladimir Nabokov's translation of A Hero of Our Time was published in the United States in 1958, the same year as Lolita: world fame was about to overtake this committed Russian living in America.