The life of the poet Nikolai Gumilev could have become a brilliant plot for an adventurous novel if it had not ended so tragically in the Russian way - from an enemy bullet. Youthful suicide attempts, nurturing a “conquistador in an iron shell”, dramatic love for a famous poetess, a series of Don Juan victories, a duel, daring travels to the most exotic continent, rivalry with a brilliant poet, ascent to the pinnacle of mastery, creation of his own poetic school, war, two Georges “touched the chest”, undisguised monarchism under Bolshevism... All this gave the right to write: “How sweet it is to live, how sweet it is to conquer / The sea and the girls, the enemies and the word.” Interest in the poet, who was executed and relatively recently legalized in Russian literature, is growing among both readers and researchers of his life and work. Vladimir Polushin, poet, laureate of the All-Russian Pushkin Prize "The Captain's Daughter", candidate of philological sciences, author of many works about Nikolai Gumilyov and the main one - the Encyclopedia of Gumilyov, made, perhaps, the first attempt to collect all the information available today into a holistic biography of the poet, approximate to the chronicle. Like any first large-scale work, the book is polemical and at the same time contains rich material for inquisitive readers and future researchers.