Eugene Onegin

‘We’d both drunk passion’s chalice … there waited for us both the malice of blind Fortuna’

Tired of the glitter and glamour of St Petersburg society, aristocratic dandy Eugene Onegin retreats to the country estate that he has recently inherited. There he begins an unlikely friendship with the idealistic young poet Vladimir Lensky, who welcomes this urbane addition to their small social circle and introduces Onegin to his fiancée’s family. But when her sister Tatyana becomes infatuated with Onegin his cold rejection of her love brings about a tragedy that encompasses them all. Unfolded with dream-like inevitability and dazzling energy, Pushkin’s tragic poem is one of the great works of Russian literature.

Charles Johnston’s acclaimed translation has been revised for this new edition, which contains a new introduction and textual notes by Michael Basker, as well as John Bayley’s introduction to the original Penguin Classics edition.