Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century Russian literature and want to expand their reading of Turgenev's novels
- Students interested in the intellectual history and social customs of Russian intellectuals
- Teachers who need an English public-domain ebook for classroom selections or book-club materials
- Readers accustomed to e-reading who want to use fragmented time to read classic novels
Not a good fit for
- Readers of popular fiction who prefer fast-paced plots or strong suspenseful conflict
- Readers completely unfamiliar with nineteenth-century Russian social background who are unwilling to consult notes
- Beginners who need a Chinese translation or a heavily annotated edition to read smoothly
Reading tips
- Read a page or two of character dialogue first to gauge the English difficulty, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.
- While reading, jot down the main characters' social positions to better grasp whom the author is satirizing.
- You may read alongside materials on Turgenev's life and the background of nineteenth-century Russian reforms for comparison and understanding.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Is this Smoke a Chinese or English edition?
Can I understand it without a background in Russian history?
Is it suitable as a first Turgenev read?
Comments
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About the author
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich (1818–1883), was a nineteenth-century Russian novelist. Because the available records are limited, his early life and education cannot be described in detail here. What can be confirmed is his achievement as the author of several widely influential works; this collection holds thirty-five of his books, including Fathers and Sons (also known as Fathers and Children), the second volume of A Sportsman's Sketches, and the novels On the Eve, Rudin, and Asya. His writing is noted for delicate psychological portrayal and a restrained, concise style, and for showing social change through the interplay of personal feeling and social reality, with characters often caught between ideal and actuality. These works hold an important place in Russian literature and the European novel tradition, and retain lasting value for readers seeking to understand nineteenth-century Russian society and the spiritual character of its educated classes.
