Mikhail Lermontov was born in 1814 and made several journies to the Caucasus before entering St Petersburg Guards' school where he began writing poetry and autobiographical dramas in prose. He died in a duel in 1841. Influenced by Byron, he is renowned as Russia's one true Romantic poet. Paul Foote was, until his retirement, a University Lecturer in Russian and Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. He has translated works by Tolstoy and Saltykov-Shchedrin.