7 h 8 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if love offers you a new life, but the past still has a claim on your heart?
In Ivan Turgenev's A Nobleman's Nest, Fyodor Lavretsky returns to provincial Russia after years abroad and a failed marriage. He hopes for a quiet, useful life. Then he meets Liza Kalitina, a serious young woman whose faith and sense of duty shape her every choice.
Around them, Marya Dmitrievna's household buzzes with visitors, conversation and rival hopes. The young official Panshin hopes to win Liza, while Lavretsky begins to believe happiness is possible again. Yet family history and promises weigh on that hope. Can he follow his wishes without breaking a bond that still matters?
What you’ll discover
- Love that grows slowly Follow Lavretsky and Liza as affection brings fresh hope into lives shaped by the past.
- The claims of duty Consider what happiness can ask of people who want, above all, to do right.
- A household full of hopes Meet an outspoken aunt, an ambitious suitor and a poor music teacher with an artist's heart.
- Russia beyond the drawing room Enter neglected estates and country landscapes in a clear-eyed portrait of the Russian gentry.
- Quiet feeling, closely observed Discover how Turgenev's calm storytelling gives weight to private wishes, old wounds and difficult choices.
Is it for you?
This book suits you if you like slow, sad, beautifully observed love stories, or if you want a gentle way into Russian literature. It may be less suited to readers who want fast plots, large casts, or any dramatic action.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A tired man comes home to the provinces
- The Kalitin house is full of rival hopes
- A family history that shaped a life
- Marriage to a beautiful woman went wrong
- Lavretsky goes back to the land
- Liza and the slow growth of love
- Duty and happiness pull against each other
- A portrait of the gentry and a changing Russia
- How Turgenev tells the story
Who’s who
- Fyodor Ivanovich LavretskyA heavy, gentle landowner marked by a harsh childhood and a failed marriage, he returns to Russia hoping only for a quiet, useful life.
- Liza (Lizaveta Mikhailovna Kalitina)A serious, deeply religious young woman who lives quietly in her mother's house and longs to do what is right.
- Marya Dmitrievna KalitinaLiza's mother, a vain and comfortable widow who loves admiration and hopes to see her daughter married well.
- Marfa Timofeevna PestovaMarya's elderly aunt, a sharp-tongued, honest woman who sees through pretence and becomes Lavretsky's friend.
- Vladimir Nikolaevich PanshinA clever, musical young official from Saint Petersburg who talks of reform, pursues his career and hopes to win Liza.
- Christopher LemmA poor, aging German music teacher, overlooked by the household, who is a true artist and a kind friend.
- Varvara PavlovnaLavretsky's beautiful, polished wife, who thrives in Paris society and has left him disillusioned.
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- Audiobook
- 7 h 8 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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A Nobleman's Nest
by Ivan Turgenev· 1859
A returning landowner finds love complicated by marriage and duty.
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Language: English
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A tired man comes home to the provinces
The novel opens in a provincial town called O., in the household of a well-off widow named Marya Dmitrievna Kalitina. Her house is a lively place, full of visitors and conversation. Into it walks, as a guest of a cousin, Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky. He is a tall, heavy, strong man with a gentle face, and he has been away from Russia for a long time.
Turgenev does not hurry to tell us who he is. First we see him through the eyes of the townspeople, who know only that he is rich and that he has had trouble with his wife. He is polite and a little shy, and he seems to be a man who has stopped expecting much from life. He is thirty-five or so, but he moves like someone older.
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The author
Ivan Turgenev
1818–1883 · Russian novelist
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short-story writer and playwright. He was born in Oryol in 1818 and died near Paris in 1883. He lived in Russia, Germany and France. His books include A Nobleman’s Nest (1859), Fathers and Sons (1862) and Virgin Soil (1877).
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What is A Nobleman's Nest about?
It follows Fyodor Lavretsky, a Russian landowner back from Europe after a failed marriage, who falls in love with a devout young woman named Liza. It is about love, duty and the weight of the past.
Is A Nobleman's Nest the same as A House of Gentlefolk?
Yes. The Russian title, Dvoryanskoe gnezdo, has been translated into English in several ways, including A Nobleman's Nest, A House of Gentlefolk and Liza. All are the same novel by Turgenev.
When was A Nobleman's Nest written and when is it set?
Turgenev published it in 1859. The story takes place in the early 1840s, in provincial Russia, when serfdom still existed. It is fiction, but it reflects the real world of the Russian landowning gentry.
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