Yama / The Pit, A Novel In Three Parts

New York Ny: Privately Published, 1927. Reprint . Hardcover. Very Good. Xii, 406 Pp. Second English Language Edition, 1927, Both Editions Privately Published, This One Is #873 Of 1550 Copies. Lightly Used, Corners Bumped, But Unopened (Pages Still Attached At Top Edge). No Marks. Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (Russian: ????????? ???????? ??????; 7 September [1870 -1938) Was A Russian Writer Best Known For His Novels The Duel (1905) And Yama: The Pit (1915), As Well As Moloch (1896), Olesya (1898), "Captain Ribnikov" (1906), "Emerald" (1907), And The Garnet Bracelet (1911) - But Best Known For Intiating A New Phase Of Russian Literature With His Short Stories. According To Nicholas Luker, "Kuprin's Position In The History Of Russian Literature Is Highly Significant, If Not Unique. Born Into An Age Overshadowed By The Great Russian Novel, Which Had Reached Its Zenith In The 1860S. He Turned To The Short Story As The Genre Suited Both To His Own Restless Temperament And To The Manifold Preoccupations Of His Generation... With His Contemporaries Chekhov, Gorky, And Bunin. He Brought The Genre Of The Short Story To An Efflorescence Without Parallel In Russian Letters. What He Conceded In Restraint To Chekhov, Conviction To Gorky, And Subtlety To Bunin, Kuprin Made Up For In Narrative Pace, Construction Of Plot, And Richness Of Theme. These Latter Qualities, Coupled With His Abiding Interest In The Human Soul, Make Him Still Very Readable Today. " Kuprin Was Highly Praised By Fellow Writers Including Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Nobel Prize-Winning Ivan Bunin And Leo Tolstoy Who Acclaimed Him A True Successor To Chekhov. Although He Lived In An Age When Writers Were Carried Away By Literary Experiments, Kuprin Did Not Seek Innovation And Wrote Only About The Things He Himself Had Experienced And His Heroes Are The Next Generation After Chekhov's Pessimists. Vladimir Nabokov Styled Him "The Russian Kipling" For His Stories About Pathetic Adventure-Seekers, Who Are Often "Neurotic And Vulnerable." All Through The 20Th Century Alexander Kuprin Remained "One Of The Widest Read Classics In Russian Literature," With Many Films Based On His Works, Partly Due To "His Vivid Stories Of The Lives Of Ordinary People And Unhappy Love, His Descriptions Of The Military And Brothels, Making Him A Writer For All Times And Places." (See Wikipedia).