num_pages: 112
description: Ivan Petrovich Belkin left behind a great number of manuscripts.... Most of them as Ivan Petrovich told me were true stories heard from various people.First published anonymously in 1830 Alexander Pushkins Tales of Belkin contains his first prose works. It is comprised of an introductory note and five linked stories ostensibly collected by the scholar Ivan Belkin. The stories center variously around military figures the wealthy and businessmen; this beautiful novella gives a vivid portrait of nineteenth century Russian life.It has become as well one of the most beloved books in Russian literary history and symbolic of the popularity of the novella form in Russia. In fact it has become the namesake for Russias most prestigious annual literary prize the Belkin Prize given each year to a book voted by judges to be the best novella of the year.It is presented here in a sparkling new translation by Josh Billings. Tales of Belkin also highlights the nature of our ongoing Art of the Novella Seriesthat is that it specializes in important although albeit lesser-known works by major writers often in new tranlsations.The Art of The Novella SeriesToo short to be a novel too long to be a short story the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are in many instances presented in book form for the first time.
language: English
title: Tales of Belkin
publisher: Melville House