About the book: 1972 / This edition publishes the poem "Darling", songs and various poems. The main work that brought I. Bagdanovich exceptional popularity was "Darling" — “Ancient Tale in Free Verse” [1775], which went through fifteen re-editions. “Darling” was written on the plot of the French fabulist La Fontaine’s “Les Amours de Psyché”, in turn based on Apuleius’s “The Golden Ass”. This is a gallant tale, full of graceful wit, innocent eroticism and unobtrusive moral teachings. Its plot - the love story of Cupid and Psyche - goes back to Apuleius's novel Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass, but Bogdanovich's poem is almost free from mythological overtones; it is closer to the treatment of the same plot by the French fabulist J. Lafontaine in the novel Love of Cupid and Psyche, to which he imitated. However, at the same time, Bogdanovich managed to remain completely independent. The poem contains many signs of Russian life, allusions to modern events in literary and political life, and Diana and Apollo are adjacent to Kashchei and Zmey Gorynych. The main advantages of the poem are its light ironic style and equally light and flexible verse. Notes: P. Orlov.