MAURICE BARING. Landmarks in Russian Literature. 1910. 6s. net.
The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:—
TOURGENIEV. Fathers and Children. Heinemann. 2s. net.
A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and compared with Kropotkin's Memoirs.
TOLSTOI. War and Peace. Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. Anna Karenin.
Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit.
DOSTOIEFFSKY. The Brothers Karamazov. Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.
This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past.
JOSEPH CONRAD. Under Western Eyes. 6s.
A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not a
Russian novelist, but he is of Polish origin.