Book description
Eugene Onegin
is the master work of the poet whom Russians regard as the fountainhead
of their literature. Set in 1820s Russia, Pushkin's verse novel follows
the fates of three men and three women. Engaging, full of suspense, and
varied in tone, it contains a large cast of characters and offers the
reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions,
often in a highly satirical vein. Eugene Onegin
was Pushkin's own favourite work, and this new translation by Stanley
Mitchell conveys the literal sense and the poetic music of the original.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799. After
traveling through the Caucasus and the Crimea, he was sent to
Bessarabia, where he wrote The Captive of the Caucasus
and The Fountain at Bakhchisaray, and began Eugene
Onegin. His work took an increasingly serious turn during the last
year of his southern exile, in Odessa. In 1824 he was transferred in
north-west Russia, where he wrote his historical drama Boris
Godunov, continued Eugene Onegin and finished The
Gipsies. He was mortally wounded and died in January 1837.
Stanley Mitchell was born in 1932 in London. He read Modern
Languages (French, German and Russian) at Oxford. He taught at various
universities - Birmingham, Essex, Sussex, San Diego California,
McGill, Montreal, Dar es Salaam Tanzania, Derby, University College
London and Camberwell School of Art. Subjects included Russian
literature and art, comparative literature, art history and cultural
studies. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Aesthetics at the
University of Derby and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the
Department of Art History at University College, London. He has
translated Georg Lukacs and Walter Benjamin, written a variety of
articles and reviews, and given numerous lectures and talks.
