In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up the portrait of a man caught up in and expressing the sickness of his times. A marvelous novel and an early landmark in Russian literature, A Hero of Our Time served as an inspiration for many later Russian authors, including Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

Hero of Our Time

Literature & Fiction

Lermontov, Mikhail

Contemporary

Penguin Classics

The first example of the psychological novel in Russia, A Hero of Our Time influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov, and other great nineteenth-century masters that followed. Its hero, Pechorin, is Byronic in his wasted gifts, his cynicism, and his desire for any kind of action-good or ill-that will stave off boredom. Outraging many critics when it was first published in 1840, A Hero of Our Time follows Pechorin as he embarks on an exciting adventure involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers. This edition includes a new introduction, chronology, suggestions for further reading, maps, and full explanatory notes.

A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics)

Reference

A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian literature The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its dissipated hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov in Lermontov's own century, and finds its modern-day counterparts in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and the films and plays of Neil LaBute.

United States

"After all that - how, you might wonder, could one not become a fatalist?" Here is a fine new translation of the first great Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time, which brings tales of Romantic adventure to a new pitch of intensity and reflection. Lermontov's hero, Pechorin, is a young army officer posted to the Caucasus, where his adventures--amorous and reckless--do nothing to alleviate his boredom and cynicism. World-weary and self-destructive, Pechorin is yet is full of passion and romantic ardor, sensitive as well as arrogant. The episodic narrative transports the reader from the breathtaking terrain of the Caucasus to the genteel surroundings of spa resorts. Told in an engaging yet pointedly ironic style, the story expresses Lermontov's own estrangement from the stifling conventions of bourgeois society and the oppression of Russian autocracy, but it also captures a longing for freedom through acts of love and bravery. Andrew Kahn's introduction sheds light on the novel's relation to orientalism and the ethnographic and anthropological discourses of the day, and his informative notes illuminate a wide range of historical, literary, and geographical references. This new edition is the only one to include Pushkin's Journey to Arzrum, in which Pushkin describes his own experiences of Russia's military campaigns in the Caucasus, offering a fascinating counterpoint to Lermontov's novel. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A Hero of Our Time (Oxford World's Classics)

Pasternak Slater, Nicolas

Kahn, Andrew

British & Irish

Oxford University Press

"Of lasting appeal to readers of all countries and centuries." — Vladimir Nabokov Russian literature's first major prose novel, this gripping work was a primary influence on Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and other great nineteenth-century writers. Mikhail Lermontov, "the poet of the Caucasus," drew upon his personal Byronic exploits to create these tales of treachery, abductions, and sexual intrigue. Published in 1840, one year before the author's death at age twenty-six in a duel, the novel retains its overwhelming power and fascination. Centered on the escapades of Pechorin, a dashing young officer and the hero of the title, the book consists of a series of interconnected short stories. The picaresque adventures revolve around Pechorin's escapades and reflect his cynical but passionate worldview. Set amid the rugged Caucasian wilderness — an exotic land populated by bandits and smugglers, transplanted society women, and lawless freebooters — it offers a thrilling blend of brutality, elegance, and enduring romance.

A Hero of Our Time

Literary

Dover `

Translated from the Russian by Elizabeth Cheresh Allen Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time was the first modern Russian novel. Published in 1840, it set a model of penetrating observation and psychological depth that would come to typify Russian literature. Its "hero," Grigorii Pechorin, also established a character type that became known in Russian fiction as "the superfluous man"—widely familiar from Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. At once driven by pride and wracked by self-doubt, both shockingly self-revealing and blindly self-deceived, he flounders to affirm himself in a social world he despises yet yearns to dominate. Pechorin is a troubling and unforgettable character. And A Hero of Our Time, which has provoked much controversy, is a novel not only central to Russian literature but fundamental to the Western literary tradition of the antihero.

A Hero of Our Time (Northwestern World Classics)

Genre Fiction

Northwestern University Press

In its adventurous happenings–its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues–A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and ’30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin–the archetypal Russian antihero–Lermontov’s novel looks forward to the subsequent glories of a Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.

A Hero of Our Time (Modern Library Classics)

Random House Publishing Group

The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its dissipated hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov in Lermontov’s own century, and finds its modern-day counterparts in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and the films and plays of Neil LaBute.

A Hero Of Our Time

Abrams Press

Eros Russe: Russkii Erot Ne Dlia Dam

Scythian Books

This "superfluous man" novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero (or antihero) Pechorin and for the beauty of its descriptions of the Caucasus, was written in 1839 and revised in 1841. The translators of this English language edition have taken especial care to preserve both the atmosphere of the story and the poetic beauty with which the poet-novelist imbued his pages.

Classics

New American Library

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Books by Lermontov, Mikhail

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Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics)

A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics)

A Hero of Our Time (Oxford World's Classics)

A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (Northwestern World Classics)

A Hero of Our Time (Modern Library Classics)

A Hero Of Our Time

Eros Russe: Russkii Erot Ne Dlia Dam

A Hero of Our Time