The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

A much neglected literary figure, Ivan Bunin is one of Russia's major writers and ranks with Tolstoy and Chekhov at the forefront of the Russian Realists. Drawing artistic inspiration from his personal experience, these powerful, evocative stories are set in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia of his youth, in the countries that he visited and in France, where he spent the last thirty years of his life. In the title story, for example, a family's tour of fashionable European resorts comes to an unexpected end; 'Late Hour' describes an old man's return to the little Russian town in the steppes that he has not seen since his early youth; while 'Mitya's Love' explores the darker emotional reverberations of sexual experience. Throughout his stories there is a sense of the precariousness of existence, an omnipresent awareness of the impermanence of human aspirations and achievements. 007 Introduction 017 The Gentleman from San Francisco (1915) 038 The Primer of Love (1915) 048 Chang's Dreams (1916) 065 Temir-Aksak-Khan (1916) 069 Long Ago (1922) 077 An Unknown Friend (1923) 087 At Sea, At Night (1923) 095 Graffiti (1924) 101 Mitya's Love (1924) 160 Sunstroke (1925) 168 Night (1925) 180 The Cancasus (1937) 185 Late Hour (1938) 192 Visiting Cards (1940) 199 Zoyka and Valeria (1940) 213 The Riverside Tavern (1943) 220 A Cold Autumn (1944)