A vivid picture of nineteenth-century Russian society, but above all the poignant story of a man whose mortality becomes the only aspect of life that he shares with his fellow man. When Turgenev published Diary of a Superfluous Man in 1850, he created one of the first literary portraits of the alienated man. Turgenev once said that there was a great deal of himself in the unsuccessful lovers who appear in his fiction. This failure, along with painful self-consciousness, is a central fact for the ailing Chulkaturin in this melancholy tale. As he reflects on his life, he tells the story of Liza, whom he loved, and a prince, whom she loved instead, and the curious turns all their lives took. David Patterson is professor of English at Oklahoma State University and translator of Tolstoy's The Forged Coupon , also available in Norton paperback.