In 1847 Anastasiia Iakovlevna Marchenko's Putevye zametki (Travel Notes) heralded a generation of Russian women authors--among the most prominent were Nadezhda Dmitrievna Khvoshchinskaia (V. Krestovsky), Avdot'ia Iakovlevna Panaeva, and Evgeniia Tur--who were to transform fiction writing into a viable profession for their sex. The ecstatic reception that critics gave the book--two povesti (novellas or long stories) signed T. Ch. and clearly the work of a woman--must have encouraged other aspiring writers and especially those who, like Marchenko, lived in the provinces.

Marchenko's career in Russian literature has been obscured by her leading what she called in Razluchniki (Homewreckers--literally, separators, 1869) a "dualistic life" as private woman and public writer. While she was serious about her craft, she veered between anonymity (adopting the initials T. Ch. for early works) and an evident desire for recognition for fiction published under her own name (A. Marchenko) between 1855 and 1859. Razluchniki, her last novel, appeared...