For the literary world of the late 1840s and early 1850s, Elizaveta Sailhas de Tournemir, writing under the pen name Evgeniia Tur, was one of the most important figures in Russia. Her novels, replete with social themes made famous by George Sand, met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, and she rose swiftly to a prominence unusual among women writers. In the 1860s she changed venues, working primarily as a literary critic but also founding and running an important literary journal, Russkaia rech' (Russian Speech). After a move abroad and the closing of her journal, she continued to write criticism, and eventually she turned to children's literature. In each of these areas her contribution was considerable, although only in the last years of the twentieth century has her work been seriously evaluated. As a woman, she was regarded by literary historians as inferior to her male contemporaries, and her reputation...