The snow which covers the hero in `Love in the Snow`, set on the island of Skiathos, birthplace of the Greek writer Alexandras Papadiamantis (1851-1911), runs parallel, one could say, with the snow falling `all over Ireland`, in Joyce`s `The Dead`, or indeed the snow which in distant Russia whitens Chekhov`s coachman of the short story `Heartache`, who, inconsolable over the recent loss of his son, was unable, among so many people that day, to unburden his grief to anyone but his own horse while unharnessing it the same evening in the stable after the day`s work. All three short stories -tragedies of man`s loneliness- constitute, each in its own way, three characteristic landmarks in world literature. I tried to help Janet Coggin with the Greek text so that no eventual gap or doubt remained with her: either about the various shades of the language of the text or its deeper structural analogies, that she might be able, possessing the necessary details, to transfer freely into her own language the letter and the spirit of this small masterpiece. We thank our friend Philip Sherrard for his help in some important points of this work.

[Απόσπασμα από κείμενο του εκδότη]