Thomas P. Hodge has produced the first literary-historical study of the art-song enterprise in Russia's Golden Age. "A Double Garland" investigates the interrelationship of poetry and music in Russia, specifically the relations between poets and composers, from 1800 to 1850. Hodge focuses on three major composers of art songs: Alyab'ev, Verstovskii, and Glinka. He surveys their choices of text and, after some preliminary metrical and structural analysis, proceeds to a detailed consideration of the dynamics of poet/composer interaction from various points of view. Hodge presents both the major...

"Notes on Fishing "was Sergei Aksakov's first book and Russia's first angling treatise. It presents a Russian gentleman's observations on the fishing tackle, angling techniques, and fish species he came to know during five decades of adventure-filled fishing in the vast Russian steppe and the environs of Moscow. But it is goes beyond a mere discourse on angling, offering philosophical, literary, linguistic, ethnographic, biological, and conservationist observations. Aksakov has imbued his notes with a deep fondness for the land and an expertly conveyed atmosphere of personal and national...