The first unabridged publication of Goncharov's masterpiece, which
took him twenty years to finish. This new translation is by the
award-winning translator Stephen Pearl.
After his university studies and a short stint in the army and the civil
service, thirty-something Boris Pavlovich Raisky enjoys the life of an
artist, frequenting St Petersburg's elegant circles, dabbing at his
paintings, playing a little music and entertaining thoughts of writing a
novel. But for a man like him, who has achieved nothing so far and by
his own admission is "not born to work", the bustle of the capital
proves too much, so he decides to visit his country estate of Malinovka.
There he hopes to rediscover the joys of a simpler and more authentic
life--but when he becomes emotionally involved with his beautiful cousin
Vera and meets the dangerous freethinker Mark Volokhov, the scene is set
for a chain of events that will lead to disappointment, confrontation
and, ultimately, tragedy.
Conceived twenty years before its initial publication in 1869, and
regarded by its author as his best work, Malinovka Heights (previously
translated in English as The Precipice) is Goncharov's crowning
achievement as a novelist and a triumph of psychological insight. Here
presented for the first time in unabridged form in a sparkling new
translation by Stephen Pearl, Goncharov's final novel deserves to be
reassessed as one of the most important classics of nineteenth-century
Russian literature.
