It is most fitting that Northwestern University Press, long a leading publisher of Russian literature in translation, launches the Northwestern World Classics series with a new translation of Russia's greatest poet. Included are many famous poems well known to, and often memorized by, every educated Russian, as well as lighter, more occasional pieces.

Renowned translator James Falen's collection of 167 of Pushkin's lyrics is arranged chronologically, beginning with verse written in the poet's teenage years--Pushkin published his first poem at fifteen and was widely revered by his later teens--and closing with lines composed shortly before his death. As a whole, these selections reveal Pushkin's development as a poet, but they also capture the wide range of subjects and styles in Pushkin's poetry.