Mikhail Lermontov 1814 - 1841, a Russian Romantic writer and poet, sometimes called the poet of the Caucasus, was the most important presence in Russian poetry after Alexander Pushkin's death until his own death in a duel four years later, at the age of 26. Lermontov's life is one of the most epic and dramatic in the history of literature. After attacking the tsar as complicit in the de facto assassination of Pushkin, Lermontov himself fell in a duel that many believe was also the work of a tsarist conspiracy designed to silence nascent rebellion. His major works, which can be readily quoted from memory by many Russians, suffer from the generally poor quality of translation from Russian to English - Lermontov therefore, remains largely unknown to English-speaking readers.