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'How we used to enjoy ourselves, how we used to sit together on those long autumn nights, how we dispatched your kinsfolk to a cruel death in broad daylight' An outsider from the literary establishment of his day, Nikolai Leskov is one of the most unique voices of nineteenth-century Russia, combining a profound religious spirit with a fascination for idiosyncratic characters, lurid crimes, comic absurdity and the joy of pure story. This volume contains five of his greatest short stories, including the matchless masterpiece Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the tale of a passionate young woman who finds liberation from her stifling marriage in adultery, casual violence and cold-blooded murder. Translated with an introduction by David McDuff