The book reproduces the full text of the first historical, literary and psychological study of the life and work of the Russian poet K.N. Batyushkov, which was written in 1884, but remained in the manuscript. Research by N.N. Novikova is of interest as an important source of information about the poet, especially about the second, “crazy” half of his life: it is based on documents that have now been lost. It is also interesting as a striking fact of the era in which it was created - an era when both the science of literature and practical psychology and psychiatry were formed and achieved vibrant development, to which the book remaining in the manuscript is also directly related. The publication is annotated and equipped with appropriate appendices that allow you to present little-known pages of the poet’s biography. (P. 3-170, 206–226, 244–296)