About the book: 1904 / SHELLER, Alexander Konstantinovich, pseudonym - A. Mikhailov (30.VII (11.VIII).1838, St. Petersburg - 21.XI (4.XII). 1900, ibid.) - prose writer, poet. His father, originally from Estonian peasants, was a theater orchestrator, then a court servant. Mother is from an impoverished aristocratic family.Sh. entered the history of Russian literature as a rather modest in his ideological and aesthetic capabilities, a toiling writer, an ascetic publicist, who nevertheless enjoyed the ardent sympathy and gratitude of the mass democratic reader of Russia of his time. Declaration, bookishness, schematism, and outright moralizing predetermined a sharp decline in interest in Sh.’s novels and stories in the 20th century..