Poe's hero, in "The Fall of the House of Usher," is the last remnant of a feudal epoch dying in a crumbling castle, every stone of which speaks of a series of generations and of external and internal dissolution. The heroes of Andreyev are solitary men, hiding in their professorial studies, in the basements of tenement houses, in the caves of Judea. Death with Poe is mysteriously beautiful, with Andreyev it is a blighting, baneful curse. The solitude of Poe's heroes is the tragic solitude of a superman on a lonely height, the solitude of Andreyev's heroes is the solitude of little men, worn out with the futile vicissitudes of life. But the horror of life and of death makes these two great artists kin. Of the Russian authors Dostoyevsky is nearest to Andreyev. The solitude of the curse-stricken man, of the man on the brink of ruin, the morbid acuteness of his perceptions, the dominion of intellect over life, the eternal longing to overstep the boundary, the endless striving with God, the city with its garrets and basements—these are the favorite themes both of Dostoyevsky and of Andreyev.
As to style, Leonid Andreyev is a wonderful word painter, but his brush knows only somber colors. The basic background of his stories and of his dramas is a dark-grey, sometimes streaked with fiery-red. His pessimism leads him to look upon the world through dark spectacles. Duke Lorenzo is held captive by "Black Masks." He sails in a ship with "black sails." At the prow of the vessel is a "young woman in black."
The stories included in this first volume of Andreyev's works in the "Russian Authors' Library" series are: "When the King Loses his Head," "Judas Iscariot," "Lazarus," "Life of Father Vassili," "Ben-Tobith" and "Dies Irae."
