What D. S. Mirsky said of Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov—that he was homo unius libri (a one-book man)—is even more true of Petr Pavlovich Ershov, whose claim to literary remembrance is based entirely on his Konek-Gorbunok. Russkaia skazka (The Humpback Horse: A Russian Tale). This work, written in 1834 when Ershov was not yet twenty years old, never came close to being surpassed by any of its author's later efforts. Konek-Gorbunok, however, has been regarded since at least the middle of the nineteenth century as a Russian classic, a fact attested by the many times that the book has been reprinted. The poem served as the inspiration for a popular and still-performed nineteenth-century ballet and a prizewinning animated film from Soiuzmul'tfil'm Studios in 1947. Konek-Gorbunok is always mentioned prominently in any account of the history of folklore stylization in Russia; its proper literary context includes Aleksandr Pushkin's fairy tales...