Notwithstanding all the qualities of their work, Grigoróvitch and Márko Vovtchók failed to realise that the very fact of taking the life of the poorer classes as the subject of novels, ought to imply the working out of a special literary manner. The usual literary technique evolved for the novel which deals with the leisured classes--with its mannerism, its “heroes,” poetised now, as the knights used to be poetised in the tales of chivalry--is certainly not the most appropriate for novels treating the life of American squatters or Russian peasants. New methods and a different style had to be worked out; but this was done step by step only, and it would be extremely interesting to show this gradual evolution, from Grigoróvitch to the ultra-realism of Ryeshétnikoff, and finally to the perfection of form attained by the realist-idealist Górkiy in his shorter sketches. Only a few intermediate steps can, however, be indicated in these pages. I. T. KÓKOREFF (1826-1853), who died very young, after having written a few tales from the life of the petty artisans in towns, had not freed himself from the sentimentalism of a benevolent outsider; but he knew this life from the inside: he was born and brought up in great poverty among these very people; consequently, the artisans in his novels are real beings, described, as Dobrolúboff said, “with warmth and yet with tender restraint, as if they were his nearest kin.” However, “No shriek of despair, no mighty wrath, no mordant irony came out of this tender, patiently suffering heart.” There is even a note of reconciliation with the social inequalities. A considerable step in advance was made by the folk-novel in A. TH. PÍSEMSKIY (1820-1881), and A. A. POTYÉKHINN (born 1829), although neither of them was exclusively a folk-novelist. Písemskiy was a contemporary of Turguéneff, and at a certain time of his career it seemed as if he were going to take a place by the side of Turguéneff, Tolstóy and Gontcharóff. He undoubtedly possessed a great talent. There was power and real life in whatever he wrote, and his novel, _A Thousand Souls_, appearing on the eve of the emancipation of the serfs (1858), produced a deep impression. It was fully appreciated in Germany as well, where it was translated the next year. But Písemskiy was not a man of principle, and this novel was his last serious and really good production. When the great Radical and Nihilist movement took place (1858-1864), and it became necessary to take a definite position amidst the sharp conflict of opinions, Písemskiy, who was deeply pessimistic in his judgment of men and ideas, and considered “opinions” as a mere cover for narrow egotism of the lowest sensual sort, took a hostile position towards this movement, and wrote such novels as _The Unruly Sea_, which were mere libels upon the young generation. This was, of course, the death of his by no means ordinary talent.