The author of this book, Prof. Vadim Vasilievich Schmidt, was known in the West as 'Russian Schmidt'. Being a talented theoretician and at the same time heading an experimentallaboratory in Chernogolovka, Vadim Schmidt had a unique talent for explaining complicated physical models and ideas in a simple way. One of his favorite sayings was 'physics is a verbal science'. The book is based on his introductory course on superconductivity. It was published in Russian in 1982 and very soon became undoubtedly the most popular Russian textbook on the physics of superconductors. Without losing its generality and depth, the book presents key aspects of superconductivity in a very clear and logically structured form. As the author said in his pref­ ace to the Russian edition, he tried to 'avoid situations when the words "it is easy to show" conceal tedious and bulky computations'. In spite of its rel­ atively small volume, the book gives a broad overview and covers the major topics of superconductivity. Well-selected examples are clearly described and help the re ader to understand the ideas presented. The book even allows an inexperienced reader to quickly get a grasp of a topic. Vadim Schmidt was born in 1927 in Moscow. His father was a well-known politician and the family did not escape the purges of Stalin's time.