Dvorianskoe gnezdo

As to the place of Liza in the succession of Turgenev's novels, the Vicomte de Vogu? in his Roman Russe said: "It was perhaps, Turgenev's greatest work." Liza, the heroine, who is reared in the noble nest, is almost the type heroine of the Russian novel, simple of nature, strong of will; not beautiful but full of charm, and affected by the Slavic spirit of fatalism and transcendental emotion.With the translation of Liza, by W. R. Shelden Ralston, English readers must have made almost their earliest acquaintance with Turgenev, the novelist, the greatest novelist, as some think, of his time. Ralston was a British Museum translator. During one of his visits to Russia, he made friends with Turgenev, and he brought to his art in translation a susceptible ear and a temperament to which the Russian imagination and curious narrative power appealed in a remarkable degree" This is the story of Liza which in the hands of some writers would be dull and stupid, but as told by the great Russian, is finished, compact, consistent, vivid, attractive and thoroughly interesting."- Daniel Greenleaf Thompsom The Philosophy of Fiction in Literature