Find out more about our collections!

The Ivan Goncharov Collection includes five great works by one of the leading figures in nineteenth-century Russian literature.

All translated by prize-winning translator Stephen Pearl.

An Uncommon Story

An Uncommon Story, published posthumously in 1924, contrary to its author’s wishes, is an extraordinary document that lays bare the jealousies felt but rarely expressed by writers, and an eternal monument to literary paranoia.

Oblomov

Rich in situational comedy, psychological complexity and social satire, Oblomov – here presented in Stephen Pearl’s award-winning translation, the first major English-language version of the novel in more than fifty years – is a timeless novel and a monument to human idleness.

Malinovka Heights

Conceived twenty years before its initial publication in 1869, and regarded by its author as his best work, Malinovka Heights (previously translated in English as The Precipice) is Goncharov’s crowning achievement as a novelist and a triumph of psychological insight. Here presented for the first time in unabridged form in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, Goncharov’s final novel deserves to be reassessed as one of the most important classics of nineteenth-century Russian literature.

The Same Old Story

Told in the author’s trademark humorous style and presented in a sparkling new translation by Stephen Pearl, The Same Old Story – Goncharov’s first novel, preceding his masterpiece Oblomov by twelve years – is a study of lost illusions and rude spiritual awakening in the modern world.

A Serendipitous Error and An Evil Malady

A Serendipitous Error, written in 1839, when Goncharov was still in his twenties, is accompanied here by another early novella, An Evil Malady and a short fictional fragment. Taken together, these stories – translated for the first time into English – are further proof of the eclectic narrative skills of the celebrated author of Oblomov.