Sof'ia Engel'gardt was a gifted storyteller who, in thirty-four short works of fiction published between 1853 and 1892, chronicled the dissolution of the patriarchal certainties of Tsar Nicholas I's reign and showed its effect on Moscow gentry of succeeding generations. The rise of Russian radicalism--beginning in the 1840s--the abolition of serfdom in 1861, and the resulting waves of reform and reaction in the ensuing decades furnish the background for her cogent observations of the society in which she spent her life.

Engel'gardt was born Sofiia Vladimirovna Novosil'tseva in 1828 (exact date of birth unknown), and what little has been revealed about her family comes from a memoir, "Semeinye zapiski" (Family Notes, 1862), written by her eldest sister, Ekaterina Vladimirovna Novosil'tseva, a prolific author of popular historical works, fiction, and memoirs under the pen name T. Tolycheva. Tolycheva describes the family (identified only as the Ns) as having served the Muscovite and Russian states...