The tales selected here are taken from various volumes, and two of them, "The Elephant" and "The White Poodle," from a volume specially designed by Kuprin for reading aloud to children. The others are: A Slav Soul; The Song and The Dance; Easter Day; The Idiot; The Picture; Hamlet; Mechanical Justice; The Last Word; Dogs' Happiness; A Clump of Lilacs; Anathema; Tempting Providence; Cain.
Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (1870-1938) was Russian novelist and short-story writer. He was an army officer for several years before he resigned to pursue a writing career, and was a friend of Maxim Gorky. He won fame with The Duel (1905), a novel of protest against the Russian military system. In 1909, Yama: The Pit, his novel dealing with prostitution in Odessa, created a sensation. Kuprin left Russia after the revolution but returned in 1937. Some of his best short stories of action and adventure appear in The Garnet Bracelet, originally published in 1917.