Gifted with poetic inspiration, he had begun writing at an early age. He was not more than fourteen when he translated some poems of Koerner and Goethe into Russian verse. Later, when at college, he wrote some short prose tales, which were published in various papers. But it was in 1896, when the "Russkoe Bogatsvo," the large St. Petersburg review, had published his two important stories, "Astray" and "The Contagion," that renown came to him. It came so suddenly that it troubled him and was almost a blow to his modesty, which is one of the sympathetic traits of his personality. In fact, there came a time when the attention of the literary world, especially among the younger generation, became so wrapped up in his works that Gorky and Tchekoff sank to a second level. This enthusiasm was caused by the fact that Veressayev's works answered a general need. They brought into the world of literature a series of characters who summed up the rising fermentation of new ideas and seemed to be spokesmen, around whom the Russian revolutionary forces gathered,--forces which, up to this time, had been scattered. An era of struggle for liberty began. It is rather important, I think, for the proper understanding of this period to say a few words concerning its history. The struggle of the younger generation against the autocracy began about 1860, at the time of the freeing of the serfs, a period known in Russia as the "epoch of great reforms." These ameliorations, which extended into almost every domain of Russian life, left intact the autocracy, which, under pretence of protecting itself, fought successfully against all activity and thus brought about, among the younger generation, a general movement towards freedom and socialism. But the autocracy found its best help in the ignorance of the people. Urban commerce, little developed at that time, practically interested only the peasants--which means nine-tenths of the population of Russia. It was natural, then, that the peasants should become the principal object of the revolutionary propaganda, and that tremendous efforts should be made on all sides in order to awaken them from their dangerous sleep. The peasant uprisings in the history of Russia, especially the two revolts directed by Stepan Razin in the 17th century, and Pugachev in the 18th, proved the fact that the masses could unite in a general insurrection. This time, the "intellectuals" joined. As they advocated a sort of communism, periodic redivisions of land according to the growth of the population, and as they harped on the tradition that land was a gift of God which no one had a right to own, we can easily see that the agricultural proletariat would welcome with open arms the socialistic ideas.