The Gypsies: And Other Narrative Poems Paperback – January 3, 2013

Excellent copy . Like New very rare.

I know nothing of Russian or Pushkin. I bought this book as I wanted to get a taste of Pushkin and I felt it needed to be poetry versus prose, as poetry was Pushkin's main oeuvre. This book contains 5 story poems by Pushkin. All of the poems maintain dramatic interest and are surprisingly economical in language & length. By reading this, I now have a taste of why Pushkin is as revered as he is. The book has peaked my interest in reading more Pushkin.The stories are: The Gypsies (which the opera Carmen was based on), The Bridegroom (a macabre folk tale), Count Nulin (which I found very good), The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Champions (re-telling of Snow White turning the dwarves into brothers), and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (which Rimsky-Korsakov used for his opera and is a political allegory that the Tsar did not take kindly to).I found the poetic translations to English effective and enjoyable. There are helpful notes in the back explaining various translation decisions & noting some of the special aspects of the Russian poems that are not translatable to English. All the poems maintain a meter & rhyme scheme (though not slavishly following Pushkin's meter). More importantly, the poems are beautiful.I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a taste of Pushkin's poetry. It is one of a few books that focus on works other than Eugene Onegin. I find it odd that so little of Pushkin is translated into English poetry. It is a loss for us as Pushkin is one of the great poets & deserves to be widely read (similar to Goethe, Dante, & so on).

Excellent product. Very quick delivery - thank you very much...

Recommend to lovers of Pushkin, lovely book