Pushkin: A Biography

Summary

A comprehensive life of Alexander Pushkin, the poet widely considered the founder of modern Russian literature, tracing his brilliant career from St Petersburg's literary salons to his fatal duel at the age of thirty-seven. Binyon spent decades working in Russian archives to produce an account that balances close literary analysis with a frank reckoning with Pushkin's volatile temperament, his complex relationship with the tsarist state, and his turbulent romantic life. Authoritative and deeply researched, it remains the standard English-language biography of a writer central to Russian cultural identity.