The poet Anton Antonovich Del'vig lived fewer than thirty-three years but left a mark on Russian literature that is out of proportion to the length of his career. He spent his short life in the intimate company of the leaders of Russian literary culture, and his repute is owing in considerable measure to the esteem in which they held him.

As his name would suggest, Baron Anton Antonovich Del'vig's family was of German origin. They were not, however, among the relatively recent German immigrants who sought their fortune in Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the need for their technical skills grew. The poet's ancestors had moved to the Baltic provinces in the late Middle Ages and were ennobled by the king of Sweden only in 1723. At some point in the eighteenth century a branch of the family moved to Russia, where they became thoroughly Russified...