To anthologize is to exclude, and sometimes to exclude reluctantly. In making the present selection of plays, I will confess to a bias in favor of poetry, ambiguity and surprise—qualities that characterize the Russian Symbolist theatre at its most original and interesting. The possession of these qualities rather than formal adherence to a literary faction has been my main criterion for inclusion or rejection.

I wish to thank Dr. Neil Granoien, who prepared the first drafts for the translations of two plays in the present volume: The Rose and the Cross and The Triumph of Death.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Vladimir Markov, of whose generosity with his time and knowledge I have taken full advantage. My thanks are also due to Professor Robert Cohen, the late Professor Peter Colaclides, Professor Simon Karlinsky and Professor Thérèse Lynn for their kind help and advice.

My translation of Kuzmin’s The Venetian Madcaps first appeared in Russian Literature Triquarterly, No. 7.