This last and most brilliant narrative poem by Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, should form an essential part of all courses in Russian literature. It combines praise of Peter the Great and his city of St Petersburg with a dramatic account of the devastating flood of 1824 and a lowly individual's resultant insanity. The political, historical, religious, ecological, and metaphysical-existential questions which Pushkin formulates with dazzling power and concision have been the subject of endless critical debate.

This student edition includes an interpretative introduction which seeks to accommodate conflicting critical readings, copious linguistic and literary commentary, and a separate short essay on the poem's St Petersburg background.