Review
"Wonderful biography...Laurence Kelly offers both perceptive literary analysis and brilliant detective work on Lermontov's life and death."-- Vanora Bennett, Times Literary Supplement

"Until now there has been no really good biography of him in English. Laurence Kelly’s admirable new work brilliantly satisfies this need. Not only is it scholarly and well researched ... it is also extremely well written and readable." -- Fitzroy Maclean, New York Times

"Laurence Kelly deserves praise and gratitude for producing this book...a very good biography, both sensible and elegant." -- C.P. Snow, Financial Times

"The best popular study of the poet yet available in English." -- Elizabeth Longford, Sunday Times

"Mr. Kelly is admirable in supplying all sorts of details about him, which will all be quite new even to many of those who already admire the writings." -- Anthony Powell, Daily Telegraph


Book Description
Writer, cavalry officer, celebrity – Mikhail Lermontov moved in an atmosphere of political intrigue and personal recklessness, producing works considered second only to Pushkin’s in Russian literature and a career which has often been compared to Byron’s.


About the Author
Laurence Kelly was a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

FROM THE PUBLISHER