The founding father of modern Russian literature, Alexander Pushkin has exerted - through his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, his plays, his short stories and his narrative poetry - a long-lasting influence well beyond the borders of his motherland. A slightly lesser-known, but by no mean less important aspect of his writing is his vast production of shorter verse, a genre at which he excelled and arguably still remains unsurpassed.

This volume, part of Alma's series of the complete poetic works of Alexander Pushkin, collects the poems Pushkin wrote during his exile in Mikhaylovskoe and his subsequent return to St Petersburg, at a time when he was working on Eugene Onegin and many others of his most celebrated works, and includes some of his lyrical masterpieces, such as 'To -' - arguably the most famous love poem in the Russian language - 'A Flower', 'St Petersburg' and 'My Autograph', each presented in a verse translation opposite the original Russian text. Enriched with notes, pictures and an appendix on Pushkin's life and works, this will be essential reading for anyone wishing to delve deeper into the Russian bard's genius.