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RUSSIAN LITERATURE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
While this book was being prepared for print a work of
great value for all the English-speaking lovers of Russian
literature appeared in America. I mean the Anthology of Russian Literature from the earliest Period to the present Time, by Leo Wiener, assistant professor of Slavic languages
at Harvard University, published in two stately volumes by
Messrs. Putnam's Sons at New York. The first volume (400
pages) contains a rich selection from the earliest documents
of Russian literature — the annals, the epic songs, the lyric
folk-songs, etc., as also from the writers of the seventeenth
and the eighteenth centuries. It contains, moreover, a general
short sketch of the literature of the period and a mention is
made of all the English translations from the early Russian
literature. The second volume (500 pages) contains ab-
stracts, with short Introductory notes and a full bibliography,
from all the chief authors of the nineteenth century, begin-
ning with Karamzin and ending with Tchehoff, Gorkiy, and
Merezhkovskiy. All this has been done with full knowledge
of Russian literature and of every author; the choice of char-
acteristic abstracts hardly could be better, and the many
translations which Mr. Wiener himself has made are very
good. In this volume, too, all the English translations of
Russian authors are mentioned, and we must hope that their
number will now rapidly increase. Very many of the Russian
authors have hardly been translated at all, and in such cases
there is nothing else left but to advise the reader to peruse
French or German translations. Both are much more nu-
merous than the English, a considerable number of the
German translations being embodied in the cheap editions of
Reklam.
A work concerning Malo-Russlan (Little-Russian) litera- ture, on lines similar to those followed by Mr. Wiener, has appeared lately under the title, Vik; the Century, a Col- lection of Malo-Russian Poetry and Prose published from 1798 to 1898, 3 vols. (Kiev, Peter Barski) ; (analysed in Athenæum, January 10, 1903.)
Of general works which may be helpful to the student of Russian literature I shall name Ralston's Early Russian