Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's preeminence as the father of Russian literature is undisputed. Lyric poet, writer of ironic fairy tales, and the author of the verse novel Evgeny Onegin, Pushkin led a life as dramatic as any story he invented, filled with political censorship, unrequited love, dramatic duels, but most of all, brilliant artistic intensity. Elaine Feinstein's discerning new biography reveals a man of reckless ebullience whose unruly behavior concealed an enduring loneliness.

Born in 1799, the child of a feckless aristocrat and a descendant of the African slave who became a favorite of Peter the Great, Pushkin described his loveless childhood as intolerable. His perception of himself as ugly derived from features inherited from his black great-grandfather; nevertheless, he pursued love affairs with some of the most beautiful women of his time.

When he was only twenty-one, his liberal poems led to banishment in southern Russia where, isolated and bored, he began to write feverishly. In his thirties, Pushkin's marriage to the seventeen-year-old beauty Natalya Goncharova brought him unexpected solace, but it was Natalya's flirtation with the Frenchman d'Anthes that led to the duel in which Pushkin lost his life.