This particular collection, in the charming Penguin’s clothbound classics, contains three sets of stories: The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, a collection of short stories; the fairly lengthy novella Dubrovsky; and the titular Queen of Spades. Though I would have appreciated the title to better reflect the nature of this book, most of the stories are delightful, most notably The Blizzard and its extraordinary turn of events, the spooky The Undertaker, the moving The Station Master, and the witty The Squire’s Daughter.
The Queen of Spades itself is absolutely lovely, and I can see why it inspired so many other works (in the banner, the 1949 movie).
My least favourite has to be Dubrovsky, unfortunately: it starts with a bang, develops quite interestingly, and there’s a bear, but it ultimately ends up in a way I won’t hesitate to define disappointing. I hear it’s considered unfinished: maybe he would have honed the ending differently, but we’ll never know.
Still, a charming collection.
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