Book excerpt: This book applies the techniques of semiotic analysis to a selection of short stories by Leonid Andreev in an attempt to offer one answer to the problems of categorizing Andreev's unique art and placing it within a literary-evolutionary perspective. Drawing on a range of literary theory from early Russian Formalism onwards, the study proceeds from one level to another according to a principle of 'degree of abstraction', so that each level constitutes firstly an independent account of Andreev's texts in itself, and secondly one stage in an overall analysis.