Vsevolod Vladimirovich Krestovsky (1839–1895) was born in the Kiev Governorate into a noble family. He spent his childhood at his grandmother's estate. In 1850, the family moved to St. Petersburg so that Vsevolod could study at the capital's First Gymnasium. After graduating, he entered the historical and literary faculty of St. Petersburg University. Krestovsky's translations, poems, and stories began to appear in literary magazines, and the author made acquaintances in literary circles. Fyodor Dostoevsky referred to Krestovsky in one of his letters as a «noble young man», while poet and prose writer Fyodor Berg noted that Vsevolod Vladimirovich was an interesting conversationalist and a masterful storyteller. At the age of twenty-eight, Krestovsky joined the Uhlan Regiment. For this, as reported by Berg, a «fierce persecution in the press» against the writer began. However, Vsevolod Vladimirovich did not cease his literary activities. The regiment was at that time under the patronage of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna; Krestovsky presented her with an extensive work on the history of the regiment that he compiled by hand. Later, at the personal suggestion of the emperor, the writer created a similar work on the history of His Majesty's Uhlan Regiment. During the Russo-Turkish War, Vsevolod Vladimirovich sent essays from the front lines to newspapers, and in 1879, two volumes of his essays were published as a separate edition. His passion for literature did not leave the writer until the end of his life. Throughout his fruitful career, he published numerous articles, novellas, short stories, and novels, but he is primarily remembered by the public as the author of the legendary «Petersburg Slums». This novel, which became the writer's most famous work, began to be published in 1864 in the journal «Domestic Notes». The events of the «Book of the Full and the Hungry» unfold against the backdrop of magnificent palaces as well as in hopeless urban slums. The novel intertwines the fates of brilliant socialites and the forsaken inhabitants at the bottom of society. Krestovsky sheds light on the unpleasant aspects of social stratification, which inevitably leads people to lose their humanity.
In the course of reprints, the «Petersburg Slums» lost several chapters, which were deleted by royal censors. After the revolution, the novel with the restored chapters was printed by Academia Publishing House; however, this publication contained many inaccuracies and distortions of meaning. In this book, the restored text of the novel is presented for the first time without abbreviations and typographical errors, with which it was published for many years. The magnificent colored illustrations of Petersburg landscapes included in the book were created by the talented artist Tatyana Evgenyevna Kosoch (1974).
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