The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories - Hardcover

"I don’t know why Nikolai Leskov is not better known: he’s one of the best... You don’t just feel the falling snowflakes and smell the hay – you glimpse where God might be" (Sara Wheeler Observer)

"Nikolai Leskov is one of the greatest and most popular of the wonderful group of Russian storytellers who flourished in the nineteenth century" (New York Times Book Review)

"Serious criticism ignored him but his tales succeeded instantly with the public... No-one catches so truthfully the diversity of national character of his time. His variety is astonishing... Leskov has both feet in life" (V.S. Pritchett)

"On Lady Macbbeth of Mtensk: 'Short, sharp and shocking novel...It is a strikingly modern work, a sort of souped-up Madame Bovary in which the anti-heroine, the bored provincial housewife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, is gripped by an excessive passion for a seductive farmhand. She's hardboiled as any Chandler dame as her ardour for her low-born lover takes her down a jet-black road of cruelty and murder'" (Sunday Telegraph)

"Nikolai Leskov fully deserves the privilege of standing in line with such makers of Russian literature as Tolstoi, Gogol, Turgenev and Goncharov. In power and beauty, Leskov's talent cedes only a little to the talent of any one of these men I have named - the creators of the Holy Bible of the Russian land - but in breadth of exposition, in depth of understanding of life's riddles, and in knowledge of the Russian language, he very often surpasses his predecessors and fellow writers" (Maxim Gorky)

‘My favourite writer, the famous Nikolai Leskov’
Anton Chekhov

‘Leskov is a writer for the future’
Leo Tolstoy

‘Leskov fully deserves the privilege of standing in line with such makers of Russian literature as Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, and Goncharov’
Maxim Gorky
Leskov's short stories exploded the traditions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Innovative in form and playful in language, these seventeen tales are peopled by outsized characters that include serfs, princes, military officers, Gypsy girls, wayward monks, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars, and garrulous storytellers.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s stunning translation brings Leskov’s sophisticated storytelling and exuberant voice to life.

‘Stories as strong as fables and crazy as life’
Alice Munroe

‘Surreal, gripping, violent but comic tales’
Margaret Atwood

‘Nikolai Leskov’s absence from classic Russian literature lists must end now! If you like Russian, and you like funny, you will love Leskov’
Gary Shteyngart