Selected Short Fiction of Leonid Andreyev

Selected Short Fiction of Leonid Andreyev is a compilation of twenty-eight stories translated into English, including: The Seven Who Were Hanged The Red Laugh The Dilemma Lazarus Life of Father Vassily Judas Iscariot Laughter Leonid Andreyev was a novelist whose best work has a place in Russian literature for its evocation of a mood of despair and absolute pessimism. At the age of 20 Andreyev entered St. Petersburg University but lived restlessly for some time. In 1894, after several attempts at suicide, he transferred to the University of Moscow, where he studied law. He became a barrister and then a law and crime reporter, publishing his first stories in newspapers and periodicals. Encouraged by Maxim Gorky, who became a close friend, he was at first regarded as Gorky’s successor as a Realist. His “Zhili-byli” (“Once There Lived…”) attracted attention and was included in his first collection of short stories (1901). Two stories of 1902, Bezdna (“The Abyss”) and V tumane (“In the Fog”), caused a storm by their candid and audacious treatment of sex. Andreyev’s work became widely discussed, and he acquired fame and wealth with a series of novels and short stories that, at their best, resemble Tolstoy in their powerful themes and ironic sympathy for suffering humanity. Among his best tales are Gubernator (1905; His Excellency the Governor) and Rasskaz o semi poveshennykh (1908; The Seven That Were Hanged). Andreyev’s fame as a novelist declined rapidly as his works became increasingly sensational. He began a career as a dramatist in 1905. His most successful plays—Zhizn cheloveka (1907; The Life of Man) and Tot, kto poluchayet poshchyochiny (1916; He Who Gets Slapped)—were allegorical dramas, but he also attempted Realist comedy.