Leonid Andreyev: The Russian Edgar Allan Poe: Stepping-Stones (Annotated)

First published in 1900 in Kuryer newspaper under the name "Impressions", Stepping-Stones is a beautiful, lyrical and atmospheric story in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe's work.

Andreyev, because of the cumulative portrayals of the weird and the horrible, has often been called the Russian Edgar Allan Poe.

Death with Poe is mysteriously beautiful, with Andreyev it is a blighting, baneful curse; but the horror of life and of death makes these two great artists kin.

HAVE you ever happened to walk in a burial-ground?

Those little walled-in, quiet corners, overgrown with luscious grass, so small, and yet so ravenous, possess a peculiar dolorous poetry all their own.