«This is the widely acclaimed translation of one of the outstanding and seminal works of Russian literature. Pushkin's «novel in verse» has influenced Russian prose as well as poetry since its completion nearly 175 years ago. By turns brilliant, entertaining, romantic, and serious, it traces the development of a young Petersburg dandy as he deals with life and love. Influenced by Byron, Pushkin reveals the nature of his heroes through the emotional colourations found in their witty remarks, nature descriptions, and unexpected actions, all conveyed in stanzas of sonnet length (a form that became known as the Onegin Stanza), faithfully reproduced by Walter Arndt in this prize-winning translation. Includes extensive introduction, notes, and four critical essays.»

When the world-weary dandy Eugene Onegin moves from St Petersburg to take up residence in the country estate he has inherited, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with his neighbour, the poet Vladimir Lensky. Coldly rejecting the amorous advances of Tatyana and cynically courting her sister Olga — Lensky's fiancee — Onegin finds himself dragged into a tragedy of his own making. Eugene Onegin — presented here in a sparkling translation by Roger Clarke, along with extensive notes and commentary — was the founding text of modern Russian literature, marking a clean break from the high-flown classical style of its predecessors and introducing the quintessentially Russian hero and heroine, which would remain the archetypes for novelists throughout the nineteenth century.