This collection of Pushkin’s shorter fiction begins with The Queen of Spades, perhaps the most celebrated short story in Russian literature. The young Hermann, while watching some friends gambling, hears a rumour of how an officer’s grandmother is always able to predict the three winning cards in a game. Hermann gradually becomes obsessed with the old woman and her seemingly mystical powers, and seeks to extract the secret from her at any cost.

This volume, part of a new series of the complete works of Pushkin in English, also includes Dubrovsky, the story of a man’s desire to avenge himself after his land is unjustly taken from him by an aristocrat; Peter the Great’s Negro, a tale inspired by Pushkin’s maternal grandfather; and the unfinished story Egyptian Nights, a meditation on poetry and the poet. Together, they represent some of the most striking and enduring of Pushkin’s prose fiction.

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'When asked for a handful of poetic geniuses of my heart and choice, I would never omit Pushkin’s name.' Thomas Mann

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Read an excerpt from The Queen of Spades and Other Stories

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