Reading Pushkin's prose is both gratifying and frustrating. Gratifying because his completed short stories are jewels. His language is concise and sublimely simple, each sentence pared down to its most essential. His parodies are more homage than ridicule, and his almost novels hook you despite yourself. They are frustrating because so many of his prose works were left unfinished. They are still worth reading just for the clarity of his 18th century language placed upon 19th century motifs. The translation is decent with some additional endnotes.
Contains:
The Moor of Peter the Great
A Novel in Letters
The Tales of the late Ivan Belkin
The History of the Village of Gorukhino
Roslavlev
Dubrovsky
The Queen of Spades
Kirdjali
Egyptian Nights
The Captain's Daughter ( )

Very very readable tales...the only negative is that a number are unfinished.
The first, "The Moor of Peter the Great" must be largely autobiographical, the author being half Russian nobility, and (on his mother's side)half Ethiopian. When the eponymous "Moor" has a marriage arranged for him by the Tsar, with a young aristocratic lady, is her repugnance to the unavoidable event primarily from racist feelings or the fact she loves another? Sadly it stops at this point.
"Dubrovsky" (unfinished but came to an adequate ending) was, perhaps, the most memorable. When a practical-joke loving aristocrat with a nasty side, arranges to relieve his neighbor of his estate folllowing a disagreement...he reckons without that individual's son....
Also loved "The Queen of Spades" where a coldhearted loser at the card table attempts to get an elderly lady to reveal her strategy for cheating... ( )

KG-3

im a sucker for the classic russian authors. who else has such a command on literary story? they are the champs. hate their novels, however. all russian novels ramble on as if they didnt know what an editor was. their short stories are the best. pushkins collected stories belongs on every bookshelf. have an hour to kill? pull it off the shelf and read a short story. fill your life with literary joy. ( )

FABULOUS COLLECTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS FOR SOME OF PUSHKIN'S POEMS FOR CHILDREN. ART DONE IN THE OLD RUSSIAN STYLE. ( )