A major new biography of one of literature's most romantic and enigmatic figures.

'It was the devil's idea that I should be born in Russia with a soul and with talent!'(Pushkin in a letter to his wife).

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was possibly Russia's greatest poet - the nearest Russian equivalent to Shakespeare - and his brief life was as turbulent and dramatic as anything in his work.

Born in Moscow in 1799, Pushkin was expelled from St Petersburg at the age of twenty as a result of his satirical writings. He remained in internal exile, under the supervision of the Emperor, for the next seven years, and throughout his life he continued to excite official disapproval for his political and religious beliefs. In 1832 he married a young beauty, Natalia Goncharova. Five years later he became jealous of the attentions paid to her by a French nobleman, and challenged him to a duel, in which he was fatally injured.

Pushkin's life and writings have inspired generations of devotees, and his influence continues to be felt in the present day. His best-known works include The Bronze Horseman, the blank-verse historical drama Boris Godunov, the verse novel Eugene Onegin and Queen of Spades.