Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) was born into a wealthy family of the Russian landed gentry and educated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. He made his name as a writer with A Sportsman's Sketches, an unvarnished picture of Russian country life that is said to have influenced Tsar Alexander II's decision to liberate the serfs. In later years, Turgenev lived in Europe, returning only rarely to his native country. He was the author of poems, stories, plays, and six novels, including Virgin Soil and Fathers and Children, both available from NYRB Classics.

Donald Rayfield is an emeritus professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. For NYRB Classics, he has translated Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls and Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories and Sketches of the Criminal World.