The History of a Town

The History of a Town is a fictional chronicle by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin first published in 1870 and regarded as the major satirical Russian novel of the 19th century. Originally it came out subtitled: "Based on true historical documents and published by M.E.Saltykov (Shchedrin)", implying the latter to be a publisher, not the author.^[1]

History

In the 1867-1868 Saltykov-Shchedrin stopped working upon the Pompadours and Pompadouresses series of short stories and sketches and started upon a novel, seeing it a kind of a spin-off for the cycle. In January 1869 two first chapters ("The City Inventory" and "A Little Organ") appeared in the No.1 issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski. A pause followed and lasted till the end of the year: the author wrote and published several satirical fairytales ("The Tale of How One Peasant Fed Two Generals", "The Lost Consciousness", "A Rabid Landlord" and others), started the new series called Tashkenters (Gospoda Tashkentsy) and finished "Sign of the Times" and "Letters About a Province" cycles. The rest of the novel was published in issues No.1-4, 9, 1870, of Otechestvennye Zapiski. In 1870 the novel came as a separate edition under the title The History of a Town, subtitled: "Based on true historical documents and published by M.E.Saltykov (Shchedrin)". ^[1]

References