In Russian literary circles Aleksei Feofilaktovich Pisemsky has generally been regarded as a second-rate writer. Yet, for a brief time at the onset of his career the immense popularity of his works ranked him with the leading writers of his time. Pisemsky was compared favorably with such masters of Russian letters as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, and Nikolai Semenovich Leskov. Writing to Turgenev in 1863, Dostoevsky described Pisemsky as "a colossal literary name." While not a writer of Tolstoy's or Dostoevsky's caliber, Pisemsky's insightful renderings of Russian provincial life have earned him a place among the masters of nineteenth-century Russian literature.

The son of Feofilakt Gavrilovich Pisemsky and Avdot'ia Alekseevna Shipova, Aleksei Pisemsky was born on 11 March 1821 (some sources say 10 March 1820), just northeast of Moscow, on the family estate at Ramen'e in the Chukhloma district of Kostroma Province. His father, a lieutenant colonel in the military...