Books like The Captain's Daughter and Other Stories

I already read these stories in The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr Sergeyevitch Pushkin, but wanted to reread Pushkin's prose in a more recent translation. This volume includes Duddington and Keane translations which are somewhat less formal in diction and easier to read. "The Captain's Daughter" is a little heavily theatrical, which is understandable when you know Pushkin and the bildungsroman style. Its strength lies in its historic and journalistic merit. Like Tolstoy's account of The War of 1812 in War and Peace, Pushkin covers the Pugachev Rebellion admirably well. The five stories "of Belkin" are interesting and quaint but not very well-developed or unique. One thing I did enjoy about them was the narrator's setup introduction by witnesses and letters. Later writers would learn to follow this type of indirect narration to protect themselves from the censors. "Kirdjali" is a related bit of folklore on par with the book of Judges in the Bible, but was too brief to pull in the reader."The Queen of Spades", as I felt on my first reading, is my favorite of Pushkin's prose. The characters of Hermann and the old Countess are believable and unique, and pitched against one another perfectly. It employs the theme of mysticism using both gambling and ghosts, without much need for exposition.Finally, the unfinished "The Negro of Peter the Great" (my elder copy had translated the title "The Moor…" which is perhaps more diplomatic, but evokes Shakespeare's Othello) contains a strong plot, and it's a shame it doesn't continue after its 41 pages. I have some doubts about the gilded czar that Pushkin makes of Peter. However, the early days of Petersburg make for a fascinating setting, and the contrasting Paris vs. Petersburg culture clashes set this story on an epic scale.