Maurice Baring OBE (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent, with particular knowledge of Russia. During World War I, Baring served in the Intelligence Corps and Royal Air Force.
An excellent review of Russian literature up to 1905, with an unforgettable chapter comparing Tolstoi and Dostoievski, those two giants of Russian and World Literature. As a result of reading this book, I have added to my library of classical Russian books eight novels by five authors I did not have: Lermontov, Ostrovsky, Goncharov, Saltykov and Merezhkovsky.
on Kindle...forgot the talented Lermontov. The book was very relaxed, but it stopped with 1905. I had hoped the author would cover Mayakovsky and Pasternak and Bulgakov. Well, maybe there's a Vol II?
I really enjoyed the content here, but the writing was not to my taste. I have never in my life seen the word ‘epoch’ used so frequently, it was jarring.