Nikolai Pavlov is now considered a minor figure in the Russian literary tradition, remembered as much for his unhappy marriage to the poet Karolina Pavlova as for his own small body of tales, translations, poetry, and criticism. At one time, however, he was one of the most influential personalities in Moscow literary society, active in virtually every literary institution. He was a contradictory individual, described by an acquaintance as talented and full of promise but one of those men for whom things continually fall apart rather than come together. Although his career unfolded roughly parallel to the evolution of Russian letters from the 1820s to the 1860s, he often found himself out of step with the social and literary mood of the day. Born a serf, Pavlov was always attracted to society life; he was one of the first raznochintsy (non-nobles) to succeed in a literary world that...