An absorbing portrait of an extraordinary man, an analysis of the work of a great Russian poet, and the evocation of a crucial period in Russian cultural history--all are combined in Edward J. Brown's literary biography of Vladimir Mayakovsky. It is the only book to reveal the whole Mayakovsky, not just aspects of his tortured personality or artistic work, and will be immediately recognized as definitive.

Mayakovsky contributed to the cultural life of Soviet Russia not only as a lyric poet but as a playwright, graphic artist, and satirist of the conventional art forms of his day. By...