WINNER OF THE 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE AND THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BEST BOOK IN TRANSLATION IN 2017 Considered Teffi’s single greatest work, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea is a deeply personal account of the author’s last months in Russia and Ukraine, suffused with her acute awareness of the political currents churning around her, many of which have now resurfaced. In 1918, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Teffi, whose stories and journalism had made her a celebrity in Moscow, was invited to read from her work in Ukraine. She accepted the invitation eagerly, though she had every intention of returning home. As it happened, her trip ended four years later in Paris, where she would spend the rest of her life in exile. None of this was foreseeable when she arrived in German-occupied Kiev to discover a hotbed of artistic energy and experimentation. When Kiev fell several months later to Ukrainian nationalists, Teffi fled south to Odessa, then on to the port of Novorossiysk, from which she embarked at last for Constantinople. Danger and death threaten throughout Memories, even as the book displays the brilliant style, keen eye, comic gift, and deep feeling that have made Teffi one of the most beloved of twentieth-century Russian writers.

Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (New York Review Books Classics)

Biographies & Memoirs

Teffi

Arts & Literature

NYRB Classics

Early in her literary career Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in St. Petersburg in 1872, adopted the pen-name of Teffi, and it is as Teffi that she is remembered. In prerevolutionary Russia she was a literary star, known for her humorous satirical pieces; in the 1920s and 30s, she wrote some of her finest stories in exile in Paris, recalling her unforgettable encounters with Rasputin, and her hopeful visit at age thirteen to Tolstoy after reading War and Peace. In this selection of her best autobiographical stories, she covers a wide range of subjects, from family life to revolution and emigration, writers and writing. Like Nabokov, Platonov, and other great Russian prose writers, Teffi was a poet who turned to prose but continued to write with a poet’s sensitivity to tone and rhythm. Like Chekhov, she fuses wit, tragedy, and a remarkable capacity for observation; there are few human weaknesses she did not relate to with compassion and understanding.

Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi (New York Review Books Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Stories about the occult, folk religions, superstition, and spiritual customs in Russia by one of the most essential twentieth-century writers of short fiction and essays. Though best known for her comic and satirical sketches of pre-Revolutionary Russia, Teffi was a writer of great range and human sympathy. The stories on otherworldly themes in this collection are some of her finest and most profound, displaying the acute psychological sensitivity beneath her characteristic wit and surface brilliance. Other Worlds presents stories from across the whole of Teffi's long career, from her early days as a literary celebrity in Moscow to her post-Revolutionary years as an émigré in Paris. In the early story "A Quiet Backwater," a laundress gives a long disquisition on the name days of the flora and fauna and on the Feast of the Holy Ghost, a day on which "no one dairnst disturb the earth." The story "Wild Evening" is about the fear of the unknown; "The Kind That Walk," a penetrating study of antisemitism and of xenophobia; and "Baba Yaga," about the archetypal Russian witch and her longing for wildness and freedom. Teffi traces the persistent influence of the ancient Slavic gods in superstitions and customs, and the deep connection of the supernatural to everyday life in the provinces. In "Volya," the autobiographical final story, the power and pain of Baba Yaga is Teffi's own.

Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints (New York Review Books Classics)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

A selection of the finest stories by this female Chekhov Teffi's genius with the short form made her a literary star in pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career, show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny-a wry, scathing observer of society-she is also capable, as capable even as Chekhov, of miraculous subtlety and depth of character. There are stories here from her own life (as a child, going to meet Tolstoy to plead for the life of War and Peace's Prince Bolkonsky, or, much later, her strange, charged meetings with the already-legendary Rasputin). There are stories of émigré society, its members held together by mutual repulsion. There are stories of people misunderstanding each other or misrepresenting themselves. And throughout there is a sly, sardonic wit and a deep, compelling intelligence. Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

Subtly Worded (Pushkin Collection)

Humor & Satire

Pushkin Collection

Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea

Historical

Pushkin Press

Rasputin and Other Ironies [Paperback] Teffi

Considered Teffi’s single greatest work, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea is a deeply personal account of the author’s last months in Russia and Ukraine, suffused with her acute awareness of the political currents churning around her, many of which have now resurfaced.\nIn 1918, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Teffi, who stories and journalism had made her a celebrity in Moscow, was invited to read from her work in Ukraine. She accepted the invitation eagerly, though she had every intention of returning home. As it happened, her trip ended four years later in Paris, where she would spend the rest of her life in exile. None of this was foreseeable when she arrived in German occupied Kiev to discover a hotbed of artistic energy and experimentation. When Kiev fell several months later to Ukrainian nationalists, Teffi headed south to Odessa, on the Black Sea, a city then under the control of White Russian forces. The White Army, however, soon beat a hasty retreat in the face of the advancing Red Army, and Teffi fled across the war-torn landscape to the port of Novorossiysk, from which she embarked at last for Constantinople.\nDanger and death threaten throughout Memories, even as the book displays the brilliant style, keen eye, comic gift, and deep feeling that have made Teffi one of the most beloved of twentieth-century Russian writers.

Memories From Moscow To The Black Sea

History

Russia

'A magnificent edition of the works of a writer who deserves her seat at the top table of Russian authors' Sara Wheeler, Wall Street Journal 
Masterful stories of faith and superstition from a much-loved Russian author, in English for the first time 
These stories conjure a vanished Russia, where Orthodox Christianity coexists with the shapeshifters and house spirits of ancient folk belief. Celebrated for the sublime wit and easy grace of her style, Teffi here plumbs the darker aspects of psychology, infusing tales of domestic conflict with the occult spirituality that thrived in the country of her youth. 
A young girl, haunted by the sinister sound of a church bell, resolves to become first a brigand, then a saint. A reluctant participant on a mass pilgrimage to the Solovetsky Islands has a shatteringly profound experience. A recently married couple's relationship becomes strained as they each silently nurse the fear that their maid is a witch. By turns playful and profound, solemn and drily sceptical, these tales of other worlds precisely illuminate human desires, fears and failings.

Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints

Short Stories & Anthologies

A selection of the finest stories by this female Chekhov, now available in a striking new Pushkin Blues format. Teffi's genius with the short form made her a literary star in pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career, show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny-a wry, scathing observer of society-she is also capable, as capable even as Chekhov, of miraculous subtlety and depth of character. There are stories here from her own life (as a child, going to meet Tolstoy to plead for the life of War and Peace's Prince Bolkonsky, or, much later, her strange, charged meetings with the already-legendary Rasputin). There are stories of émigré society, its members held together by mutual repulsion. There are stories of people misunderstanding each other or misrepresenting themselves. And throughout there is a sly, sardonic wit and a deep, compelling intelligence.

Subtly Worded and Other Stories (Pushkin Blues)

Dramas & Plays

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Teffi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Teffi

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Teffi. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (New York Review Books Classics)

Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (New York Review Books Classics)

Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi (New York Review Books Classics)

Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints (New York Review Books Classics)

Subtly Worded (Pushkin Collection)

Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea

Rasputin and Other Ironies [Paperback] Teffi

Memories From Moscow To The Black Sea

Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints

Subtly Worded and Other Stories (Pushkin Blues)