A Hero of Our Time

Mikhail Lermontov

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Lermontov's only novel was influential for many later nineteenth-century authors, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Lermontov's hero, Pechorin, is a dangerous man, Byronic in his wasted gifts and his cynicism, and desperate for any kind of action that will stave...