ALEXANDER FOMICH VELTMAN (1800-1870) was a popular and influential writer in his own time whose experimental works range from prose to poetry and realism to fantasy, including time-travel fiction. He was a friend of Pushkin, and his novels were praised by both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. His Selected Stories are also published by Northwestern University Press.

STEPHEN A. BRUCE is an associate professor of Russian translation at the Defense Language Institute.