Liza

Ivan Turgénieff's Liza, or A Nest of Nobles, opens with a translator's admiring portrait of the author as one of Russia's great novelists: a master of vivid character, subtle realism, and moral seriousness whose early Notes of a Sportsman exposed the human cost of serfdom with restraint and sympathy. The preface places this novel beside his wider work, from short stories and plays to Fathers and Children and Smoke, and explains that Liza's artistic grace, unlike his more topical later fiction, can speak to English readers with special clarity. It also emphasizes a careful new translation, closely faithful to Turgénieff's Russian text and revisions. The story begins on a serene spring evening in 1842 in the provincial town of O., where Maria Dmitrievna Kalitina, a widowed landowner of comfortable means, presides over a household shaped by gentility, vanity, and quiet sadness. Her blunt aunt, Marfa Timofeevna, sharply contrasts with her sentimental caution, while the polished Gedeonovsky brings gossip about Fedor Ivanovich Lavretsky's troubled marriage. Into this world comes the ambitious, charming Panshine, and soon Liza herself appears, sincere and spiritually earnest. Lavretsky's pain, Liza's compassion, and the later arrival of the fervent idealist Mikhalevich set the novel's emotional and philosophical tensions in motion, leading to a fierce all-night debate over faith, disillusionment, and the meaning of a ruined life. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.