The Torrents of Spring, First Love, and Mumu

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) was a novelist, poet and playwright known for his honest and affectionate portrayals of Russian serfs in the feudal system of the nineteenth century. Unlike his contemporaries Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, whose writings focused primarily on church and religion, Turgenev believed in and advocated the need for Russia to Westernize. He criticized the provincial society and political turbulence of his time through sophisticated, focused and often emotional prose. This edition contains "The Torrents of Spring," an intimate novella that illustrates Turgenev's idealistic ideas about love, and that possibly reflects his own failure in finding romantic love. Also included in this edition, "First Love" is one of Turgenev's most beloved and well-known short works of fiction: a tragic, thought-provoking tale of unrequited love in the social hierarchy. Lastly, "Mumu" is a penetrating look at a feudalist government through the lives of a lonely, old woman lord and her serfs.