Virgin Soil

In the twilight of imperial Russia, a band of young idealists sets out to awaken the peasantry—but the soil of the countryside proves harder to till than they imagined. Alexey Nezhdanov, a sensitive intellectual and illegitimate son of a landowner, joins a secret revolutionary circle. Alongside the fierce Marianna, the pragmatic factory manager Solomin, and the charismatic agitator Markelov, he throws himself into the populist cause. Yet the peasants distrust them, the authorities hunt them, and their own passions threaten to tear them apart. Turgenev’s last novel is a masterful portrait of idealism, love, and despair—timeless in its questions about how to make a better world without destroying oneself. This vivid retelling brings the story of these souls meeting history’s harsh autumn into clear, modern English. Part of Timeless Classics.