Boris Pasternak ranks among the greatest writers of twentieth-century Russia. To native speakers of Russian he is perhaps best known and loved for his verse; nonnative speakers are rarely familiar with Pasternak's poetry because of the difficulties in translating it. Pasternak was the second Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize in literature--Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was the first--and he is known outside the Russian-speaking world primarily for his novel, Doktor Zhivago (1958; translated, 1958). European and American readers recall that he won the Nobel Prize in 1958 for his novel, but they often forget that the Nobel committee noted first his outstanding achievements in verse. He was cited "for his important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition."

Pasternak scholars today are able to draw on a wealth of information provided by his biographers. Yet, because of his own autobiographical works, scholars...