Most of the world saw him as the Russian writer par excellence before coming to see him as a member, with Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, of the great Russian triumvirate. Eventually, however, he was eclipsed, in the twentieth century, which sought spicier fare, by his two compatriots.
Within Turgenev's substantial body of works there are six novels. He himself established this canon when he provided an introduction for them in the ten-volume 1880 collected edition of his works (in which the novels occupied volumes three through five):
In deciding in the forthcoming edition to publish all the novels I have written (Rudin, A Nest of the Gentry, On the Eve, Fathers and Sons, Smoke, and Virgin Soil) in chronological order, I consider it not inappropriate to explain, briefly, why I have done so. I wanted to provide those of my readers who take upon themselves the trouble of reading these six novels in a row the opportunity to ascertain for themselves graphically to what extent those critics who accuse me of having betrayed previously held views, of apostasy etc., are justified. On the contrary, it seems to me that I might more likely be accused of excessive constancy and invariability, so to speak, of path chosen.
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