The portraits that follow are from a large number of photographs recently recovered from sealed archives in Moscow, some—rumor has it—from a cache in the bottom of an elevator shaft. Five of those that follow, Akhmatova, Chekhov (with dog), Nabokov, Pasternak (with book), and Tolstoy (on horseback) are from a volume entitled The Russian Century, published early last year by Random House. Seven photographs from that research, which were not incorporated in The Russian Century, are published here for the first time: Bulgakov, Bunin , Eisenstein (in a group with Pasternak and Mayakovski), Gorki, Mayakovski, Nabokov (with mother and sister), Tolstoy (with Chekhov), and Yesenin. The photographs of Andreyev, Babel, and Kharms were supplied by the writers who did the texts on them. The photograph of Dostoyevsky is from the Bettmann archives. Writers who were thought to have an especial affinity with particular Russian authors were asked to provide the accompanying texts. We are immensely in their debt for their cooperation.

I have this story from the artist Tracy Hicks about his former father-in-law who had a 1960s pickup he’d restored and customized—spent years on the project, loved this truck like nothing else—until one day he backed it over one of his kittens in the driveway. Killed the kitten. Sold the pickup truck. Like that.

I think I need to figure out what I was doing, what I really felt I was up to, as a kid when, overwhelmed by some enthusiasm, some new all-consuming fascination, I’d require it to be fully expressed at once. I’d have to slap together something out of household odds and ends, available parts, to represent whatever it was. And generally leave it at that.

I am cleaning out the storage space that’s ­under the stairs but accessed from outside—a steel door somewhat strangely opening onto the grass. Twenty years of stuff diverted here. Not quite tossed out. You never know. 

Our house on Emerald Isle, The Sea Section, is divided down the middle, and has an E beside one front door and a W beside the other. The east side is ruled by Hugh, and the bedroom we share is on the top floor. It opens onto a deck that overlooks the ocean and is next to Amy’s room, which is the same size as ours but is shaped differently. 

I believe I wrote, ‘And on with you now from this new nought anew.’

What follows are the authors’ discussions on the first stirrings, the germination of a poem, or a work of fiction. Any number of headings would be appropriate: Beginnings, The Starting Point, etc. Inspiration would be as good as any.

The Paris Review Eagle, or “the bird” as it was referred to, was designed by William Pène du Bois, the magazine’s art editor, in the spring of 1952. The symbolism is not difficult: an American eagle is carrying a pen: the French association is denoted by the helmet the bird is wearing—actually a Phrygian hat originally given a slave on his freedom in ancient times and which subsequently became the liberty cap or bonnet rouge worn by the French Revolutionists of the 19th Century. 

My father’s opinion is that my judgement is sound most of the time but given to the occasional psychotic break. This evaluation’s based heavily on a travel decision I made as a thirteen year old that lopped a few years off his life. As is often the case, he didn’t know the half of it. That half went like this:

Louis-Ferdinand Céline was born and died near Paris (May 27, 1894-July 1, 1961). Of his books and pamphlets, some eighteen appeared in his lifetime, some six remained unpublished. His principal works were ‘Journey to the End of Night’ (1932), ‘Death on the Installment Plan’ (1936) and 'One Chateau from Another' (1957).