In May 1881 Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev professed the opinion to Sergei Nikolaevich Krivenko that the mantle of responsibility for Russian literature had fallen to the writer Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov. The following year Turgenev wrote to Saltykov: "You are Saltykov-Shchedrin, a writer who is destined to leave a great mark on our literature." Turgenev was not alone in his admiration for Saltykov, whom contemporaries often compared favorably with Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. His reputation and readership, however, have not stood the test of time well. He was revered and often quoted in Soviet times--Lenin was a particular devotee--but this attention resulted more because of his trenchant criticism of life under the czars than because of his literary talent. Of the twenty volumes of Saltykov's writing, only Gospoda Golovlevy (The Golovlev Family, 1880), Istoriia odnogo goroda (The History of a Town, 1870), and the skazki (fairy tales) retain any real popularity among...