In 1831 he entered Moscow University, electing the Philological Faculty. There were at that time in the University a coterie of young men who afterwards became famous as writers, and the lectures delivered by a number of enthusiastic young professors were admirably calculated to develop the best in those who heard them. He finished the complete course, and after a brief visit at his native place went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Ministry of Finance. Gogol, and Goncharóf himself, have painted the depressing influence of the officialdom then existing. The chinóvnik as painted by those early realists was a distinct type. But on the other hand, there was a delightful society at St. Petersburg, and the literary impulses of talented young men were fostered by its leaders. Some of these men founded a new journal of which Salonitsuin was the leading spirit, and in this appeared Goncharóf's first articles. They were of a humoristic tendency. His first serious work was entitled 'Obuiknavénnaya Istóriya' (An Ordinary Story),—a rather melancholy tale, showing how youthful enthusiasm and the dreams of progress and perfection can be killed by formalism: Aleksandr Adúyef the romantic dreamer is contrasted with his practical uncle Peter Ivánovitch. The second part was not completed when the first part was placed in the hands of the critic Byelinsky, the sovereign arbiter on things literary. Byelinsky gave it his "imprimatur," and it was published in the Sovreménnik (Contemporary) in 1847. The conception of his second and by all odds his best romance, 'Oblómof,' was already in his mind; and the first draft was published in the Illustrated Album, under the title 'Son Oblómova' (Oblómof's Dream), the following year.