Peacocks in Russia

One of the most beautiful books I have bought this year is the new, massive collection of novels, novellas and stories by the great Nikolai Leskov, published by Vintage UK. The cover design is by Suzanne Dean, making glorious use of an illustration by Finnish artist Klaus Haapaniemi. Here are the front and back...

Click for bigger--you really need to

..and here is the full book, shown with the reason for the lack of recent blogging, for scale.

Here is the US edition, which is very elegant, but it can't help but look diminished in comparison.