The novel “The Governess” is chronologically the first in the “Non-fictional bedtime stories” series. Its plot is based on real events - the circumstances of the investigation into the suspicious death in April 1878 of Nikolai Poznansky, the 18-year-old son of a gendarme colonel (in the novel - Proznansky). A home teacher who allegedly had an intimate relationship with a young man was suspected of poisoning. The intriguing twists and turns of this investigation were widely discussed in the press of those years.