Lidiia Charskaia was a prolific and popular writer of fiction for children and young people. She is best known for her novels devoted to the adventures of adolescent schoolgirls. Her works also include short fiction, drama, and verse for children; historical fiction for children and adolescents; and at least seven volumes of light, sometimes lurid, romantic fiction for adults. Early-twentieth-century critics of Russian children's literature conceded, often with regret, that Charskaia was the most popular writer of books for children and adolescents in Russia at that time. Adult disapproval of her influence did not sway her fans, however: surveys of children's libraries in the decade preceding the revolution indicate that Charskaia's works were requested far more frequently than works by any other author, whether foreign or Russian, as scholar Elena Dan'ko has written.

The details of Charskaia's biography are uncertain. Until the late 1990s, most discussions of her...