V.V. Krestovsky (1840–1895) is a remarkable Russian writer, author of the widely known novel “The Slums of St. Petersburg.” The “Darkness of Egypt” trilogy, published in the late 80s of the 19th century, was long considered tendentious and was not published in Soviet times. The dramatic events in the life of the main character Tamara Bendavid, the heiress of a wealthy Jewish family who converted to Christianity for the sake of her lover and was deceived by him, unfold against the backdrop of historical events in Russia in the 70s of the last century, depicted by the author with genuine knowledge of the material. Lively figurative language and a captivating plot arouse deep interest in the reader, who himself must draw a conclusion about the “tendentiousness” of the novel.