Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) was both patriarch and enfant terrible of Formalism, a literary and film scholar, a fiction writer and the protagonist of other people's novels, instructor of an armored division and professor at the Art History Institute, revolutionary and counterrevolutionary. His work was deeply informed by his long and eventful life. He wrote for over seventy years, both as a very young man in the wake of the Russian revolution and as a ninety-year old, never tiring of analyzing the workings of literature.Viktor Shklovsky: A Reader is the first book that collects crucial writings from across Shklovsky's career, serving as an entry point for first-time readers. It presents new translations of key texts, interspersed with excerpts from memoirs and letters, as well as important work that has not appeared in English before.

Translator's Introduction Viktor Shklovsky: Life and Work Ostranenie and Other Key Concepts Shklovsky in the West: Reception and Heritage The Poker of Russian Formalism: Shklovsky as Protagonist In Fiction In Diaries and Memoirs Shklovsky's Shorts Shklovsky's Style Selection, Translation and Formal Remarks Section I: OPOYAZ PublicationsTranslator's Introduction Resurrection of the Word (1914)Art as Device (1917/1919)Literature beyond "Plot" (1921/1925) Literature beyond Theme; Non-Linear Inheritance Literature beyond Genre; Digressions Literature beyond Categories; Seeing like a Child Section II: Autobiographic HybridsTranslator's Introduction A Letter to Roman Jakobson (1922/1990)Zoo, or Letters Not About Love (1923/1965) Author's Preface to the First Edition A Second Preface for an Old Book A Third Preface Letter Four Letter Six Letter Eight Letter Eleven Letter Seventeen Letter Twenty Two Letter Twenty Eight Letter ThirtyA Sentimental Journey (1923) Revolution and the Front The Writing DeskKnight's Move (1923) Preface One Driving Nails with a Samovar On "The Great Metalworker" A Thousand Herrings The Tsar's KitchenTeaser Stallions (1924/1990)The Third Factory (1926) The First Factory The Second Factory The Third Factory Section III: Early Soviet Criticism and Advice to Young WritersTranslator's Introduction The Technique of Writing Craft (1927) Introduction: Don't Hurry to Become a Professional Writer Newspaper Work Narrative Prose Unfolding a Text A Few Words on Poetry ConclusionHamburg Score (1928) Babel: A Critical Romance (1924) In Defense of the Sociological Method (1927) Ten Years (1927) Hamburg Score (1928)The Way I Write (1930/1990) Section IV: After the FreezeTranslator's Introduction Once Upon A Time (1964) Childhood Youth The Ending of YouthTales about Prose (1966/1983) A Note From the Author On the Novella Some Empirical Remarks on the Methods of Connecting Novellas On the Different Meanings of "Character" when Applied to Literary Works of Different Epochs On the True Unity of Works of Art What Happened after the Plague of 1348? On the Sense of Wonder Scenes of Recognition in Dickens Concept RenewalLetters to Nikita Shklovsky (1965-1969/2002) 05.10.1965 05.10.1966 19.04.1968 02.04.1969 20.07.1969Bowstring. On the Dissimilarity of the Similar. (1970)Energy of Delusion. A Book on Plot. (1981) Section V: On the Theory of Prose (1983)Translator's Introduction Preface Words Free the Soul from Narrowness: About the OPOYAZThe Rhyme of Poetry. The Rhyme of Prose. Structuralism through the Looking Glass: A FarewellThe First Unsuccessful Blueprint of a Whale: Chekhov's "Darling"The Links of Art Do Not Repeat Each Other. Once Again, on the Dissimilarity of the Similar. Sterne In the Footsteps of Old Discoveries and Inventions The Problem of Time in ArtThe Lungs Are for Breathing. Thoughts Out Loud. Yet Another Foreword Ostranenie In Reply to a Questionnaire [More Thoughts Out Loud] Section VI: In 60 Years: Works on Cinema. (1985)Translator's Introduction Introduction (1985)On Cinema (1919)The Plot in Cinema (1923)Chaplin as Policeman (1923)The Semantics of Cinema (1925) Poetry and Prose in Cinema (1927)On Re-Editing Films (1927)Five Feuilletons on Eisenstein (1926)Talking to Friends (1939)Happy Fable-land (1948)What the Character Knows and What the Audience Knows (1959)The Emergence of the Word (1963)Return the Ball into the Game (1970)Unread Dream (1984)Instead of an Afterword: A Letter to Evgeny Gabrilovich (1984)