Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) was one the best-known Russian novelists of the 19th century. Among his books, Fathers and Sons (1862) stands out as a masterpiece. Turgenev's shorter fiction was equally popular. Written in the late 1870s and early 1880s, his Poems in Prose are regarded as a classical example of what is now known as flash fiction. The translation has been carefully edited, and the almost always omitted story, "Threshold", which is regarded as one of Turgenev's best, reinstated to its rightful place.