First Love by Ivan Turgenev

First Love by Ivan Turgenev

This vivid, sensitive tale of adolescent love follows a 16-year-old boy who falls in love with a beautiful, older woman and experiences a whirlwind of changing emotions, from exaltation and jealousy to despair and devotion. This beautifully packaged series of classic novellas includes the works of masterful writers. Inexpensive and collectible, they are the first single-volume publications of these classic tales, offering a closer look at this under-appreciated literary form and providing a fresh take on the world's most celebrated authors.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in 1818 in the Province of Orel, and suffered during his childhood from a tyrannical mother. After the family had moved to Moscow in 1827 he entered Petersburg University where he studied philosophy. When he was nineteen he published his first poems and, convinced that Europe contained the source of real knowledge, went to the University of Berlin. After two years he returned to Russia and took his degree at the University of Moscow. In 1843 he fell in love with Pauline Garcia-Viardot, a young Spanish singer, who influenced the rest of his life; he followed her on her singing tours in Europe and spent long periods in the French house of herself and her husband, both of whom accepted him as a family friend. He sent his daughter by a sempstress to be brought up among the Viardot children. After 1856 he lived mostly abroad, and he became the first Russian writer to gain a wide reputation in Europe; he was a well-known figure in Parisian literary circles, where his friends included Flaubert and the Goncourt brothers, and an honorary degree was conferred on him at Oxford. His series of six novels reflect a period of Russian life from 1830s to the 1870s: they are Rudin (1855), A House of Gentlefolk (1858), On the Eve (1859; a Penguin Classic), Fathers and Sons (1861), Smoke (1867) and Virgin Soil (1876). He also wrote plays, which include the comedy A Month in the Country; short stories and Sketches from a Hunter's Album (a Penguin Classic); and literary essays and memoirs. He died in Paris in 1883 after being ill for a year, and was buried in Russia.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780974607894
ISBN 10	0974607894
Title	First Love
Author	Ivan Turgenev
Series	Art Of The Novel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Melville House Publishing
Year published	2004-09-01
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.