"It is not people that kill, but ungovernable passions." The eponymous princesses are both spinsters, but there any similarity ends. Zizi, thwarted in love, takes her lot meekly until she comes face to face with her erstwhile lover's perfidy, and her sense of justice and familial devotion rise to claim a bittersweet revenge. Mimi meanwhile, whose own romantic failures have left her bitter and resentful, takes her revenge groundlessly, leading all around her to a tragic end. This tale portraying the two diametrically opposed sides of the nature of the Russian aristocracy reveals this frequently overlooked author to be a significant force in 19th-century literature.

Vladimir Odoevsky (1804-1869) was a prominent Russian writer, philosopher, music critic, and philanthropist. Neil Cornwell is editor of The Reference Guide to Russian Literature and author of The Gothic-Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature.