“Turgenev to me is the greatest writer there ever was.” — Ernest Hemingway

Arguably the first modern novel in the history of Russian literature, this story shocked readers when it was first published in 1862—the controversial character of Bazarov, a self-proclaimed nihilist intent on rejecting all existing traditional values and institutions, providing a trenchant critique of the established order. Turgenev’s masterpiece investigates the growing nihilist movement of mid-19th-century Russia—a theme which was to influence Dostoevsky and many other European writers—in a universal, and often hilarious, story of generational conflict and the clash between the old and the new. This edition includes pictures and an extensive section about the author's life and works.