About the book: 1987 / Russian writer - prose writer and poet, folklorist - Mikhail Dmitrievich Chulkov (1744–1792) entered literature as the author of a collection of literary and everyday stories “Mockingbird, or Slavic Tales” and the novel “The Pretty Cook, or the Adventures of a Depraved Woman.” Turning to an adventurous everyday novel, the writer gives the narrative the flavor of a historical legend. In “The Pretty Cook...” Chulkov creates a Russian version of the picaresque novel: in its center is the fate of a woman from the people - a soldier's widow. The plot of “The Tale of the Birth of the Taffeta Fly” is the adventures of the “student” Neoch (“cheerful”) in ancient Novgorod and other principalities of the ancient Slavs. Chulkov’s works are distinguished by lively intrigue, rapid development of the plot, and a light, fantastic style of storytelling - thanks to this, they have not lost their entertainment for the reader.