This publication of the Complete Works of the great Russian fabulist Ivan Andreevich Krylov is carried out by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated July 15, 1944. During the life of I.A. Krylov's collected works have not been published. Many prose works, plays and poems remained lost in periodicals of the late 18th century. Only collections of his fables were published many times. Several attempts were made to publish the Complete Works, but this completeness was not achieved due to a number of reasons. The present collected works of Krylov include all of his artistic works, translations and letters. The first volume includes prose works, magazine prose, mainly chronologically limited to the last decade of the 18th century.