First Love is a novel by Ivan Turgenev, first published in 1860. It is one of his most popular pieces of short fiction. Three of Turgenev's stories, Torrents of Spring, Asya, and First Love work well when read in combination; they are often found published together and deal with similar topics and take place in similar contexts. First Love is an example of a frame story. The beginning starts with the protagonist, Vladimir Petrovich, in a party. The party guests are taking turns recounting the stories of their first loves. When Vladimir's turn comes to tell his story, he suggests that he write down the story in a notebook because it is a rather long, unusual tale. The story within the story then continues from his notebook, which recounts the memory of his first love. Vladimir Petrovich, a 16-year-old, is staying in the country with his family and meets Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina, a beautiful 21-year-old woman, staying with her mother, Princess Zasyekina, next door. This family, as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time, was only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins, in the case of this story, are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls in love with Zinaida, who has a set of several other suitors whom he joins in their difficult and often fruitless efforts for the young lady's favour. Zinaida, as is revealed throughout the story, is a thoroughly capricious and somewhat playful mistress to these rather love-struck suitors. She fails to reciprocate Vladimir's love, often misleading him, mocking his comparative youth in contrast to her early adulthood. But eventually the true object of her affections and a rather tragic conclusion to the story is revealed.
《初恋》是屠格涅夫的中篇小说，发表于1860年，是作者最出色的小说之一。堪称俄罗斯文学经典。至今仍是俄罗斯年轻人的必读名著。故事结局十分引人注目——结局有些出人意料，但是又会让读者重新评价自己对故事人物的评判，让读者在惊讶之余不禁莞尔。作为典型的框架故事，故事之初讲述了主人公弗拉基米尔参加一次晚会的情形。嘉宾们轮流讲述自己的初恋，轮到弗拉基米尔时，他表示由于自己的初恋经历较长，他将其记载在了笔记本里。这个故事中的故事就此展开，将他的初恋经历娓娓道来。
