Poor Folk

Summary

Upon its first publication in 1846, Poor Folk was an immediate critical triumph. The influential critic Vissarion Belinsky wrote that 'the novel reveals secrets about life and character-types in Russia of a kind never dreamt of by anyone else,' and the unknown twenty-five-year-old author was hailed as 'the new Gogol.'

Composed entirely of an exchange of letters between a middle-aged copy clerk and a young seamstress who live on opposite sides of a Petersburg tenement courtyard, the novel explores the emotional and psychological effects of a threatening urban environment on the psyches of poor people struggling to survive.