A Hero of Our Time - (Penguin Classics) by Mikhail Lermontov (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Natasha Randall's English, in her new translation, has exactly the right degree of loose velocity. . . . (Nabokov's version, the best-known older translation, is a bit more demure than Randall's, less savage.)"
-James Wood, London Review of Books

"[A] smart, spirited new translation."
-The Boston Globe

"One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper."
-Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

About the Author

Paul Foote was, until his retirement, a university lecturer in Russian and fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford.