Recommendations from our site
“This is the most celebrated story by a writer who is not quite so well known in English. It was written in 1864…it’s set deep in the heartland of provincial Russia, which Leskov knew very well. He grew up in Oryol, south of Moscow, and Mtsensk is a town in the Oryol region. Leskov had a lingering memory from his childhood of the funeral of an old man who was murdered by his voluptuous young daughter-in-law while he kipped under a blackcurrant bush on a summer’s day. This is what gave Leskov the idea for his story.” Read more...
The Best Russian Short Stories
Rosamund Bartlett, Translator
