Three Ends

At Klyuchevskoye Works, the furnace gives the whole settlement its rhythm. Around it lie three "ends": neighbourhoods divided by origins, customs and faith, yet bound to the same labour, the same debts and the same uncertain future.

As serfdom gives way to freedom, the old arrangements begin to fail. A conscientious manager dreams of reform; workers hope for land of their own; merchants turn need into opportunity. In crowded cottages, taverns and forest hermitages, families struggle over money, marriage, belief and the right to choose a life.

At the heart of the chronicle is Nyurochka, a girl discovering how much suffering the adult world conceals-and how difficult it is to help without claiming power over another person. Around her, Mamin-Sibiryak creates a richly inhabited landscape of charcoal camps, copper mines, river barges, religious pilgrimages and ironworks slowly changing hands.

Three Ends joins the breadth of a social novel to the intimacy of family life. Its humour is rough, its sympathies searching, and its questions about work, dignity and freedom remain unsettled to the final page.

This complete edition preserves all six parts and the epilogue, the author's twenty-one notes and two source-language glosses. Twenty-two translator notes and an original preface and afterword provide context while leaving the narrative's voices and ambiguities intact.