Yevgeny Onegin

The aristocratic Yevgeny Onegin has come into his inheritance, leaving the glamour of St Petersburg's social life behind to take up residence at his uncle's country estate. Master of the nonchalant bow, and proof of the fact that we shine despite our lack of education, the aristocratic Onegin is the very model of a social butterfly - a fickle dandy, liked by all for his wit and easy ways. When the shy and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him, Onegin condescendingly rejects her, and instead carelessly diverts himself by flirting with her sister, Olga - with terrible consequences.



Alexander Pushkin was born in 1799. He published his first poem when he was a teenager, and in 1820 his first long poem - Ruslan and Lyudmila - made him famous. His work, including the novel-in-verse Yevgeny Onegin, the poem The Bronze Horseman, the play Boris Godunov and the short story 'The Queen of Spades', has secured his place as one of the greatest writers, in any language, ever to have lived. He died aged just 37, having been wounded in a duel - Pushkin's 29th - by his brother-in-law.Anthony Briggs is one of the world's leading authorities on the work of Pushkin. He is the author of Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study and editor of Alexander Pushkin: A Celebration of Russia's Best-Loved Writer. He is an acclaimed translator from Russian, whose translations include Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Resurrection, as well as The Queen of Spades, a collection of Pushkin's writings published by Pushkin Press.