Alma Books

A drama of ambition, murder, remorse and retribution, Boris Godunov charts the decline of a Russian statesman, whose dynastic aims were foiled by a guilty past and an audacious upstart. Based on history and inspired by Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin's daring masterwork is presented here in its rarely published uncensored version of 1825.Set in...

First published in 1831, Belkin's Stories was the first completed work of fiction by the founding father of Russian literature. Through a series of interlinked stories purporting to have been told by various narrators to the recently deceased country squire Ivan Belkin, Pushkin offers his own variation on themes and genres that were popular in his...

During a stifling St Petersburg summer, the rich landowner Velchaninov is haunted by the figure of a man he keeps glimpsing in the street. When he receives a surprise visit from him late at night, he realizes he is an old friend, Trusotsky, whose late wife, Natalya, was his secret lover. As the two men renew their acquaintance, Velchaninov becomes...

The civil servant Ivan Matveich and his wife Yelena Ivanovna are spectators of an exhibition - in a shopping arcade - of a crocodile owned by a German, when Ivan is suddenly swallowed alive by the animal. Unsuccessful in his attempts to be freed from his prison, due to the German's concern for his crocodile and excessive desire for compensation,...

Presented as a series of letters between the humble copying clerk Devushkin and a distant relative of his, the young Varenka, Poor People brings to the fore the underclass of St Petersburg, who live at the margins of society in the most appalling conditions and abject poverty. As Devushkin tries to help Varenka improve her plight by selling...

While at a party organized by the lieutenant of his regiment, the shy and awkward Ryabovitch is suddenly kissed by an unknown woman in a dark room. This unexpected and electrifying encounter marks a turning point in his life and a shift in his personality, arousing his passions and setting him on a desperate quest to discover the identity of the...