A mercilessly written chronicle of the collapse and death of a noble family. One of the most hopeless books - both in the work of Saltykov-Shchedrin and in the history of Russian literature. “The Main Books of Russian Literature” is a joint series of the publishing house “Alpina. Prose" and the Internet project "Shelf". The works that appear in it are selected by modern writers, critics, literary scholars, and teachers. This is an attempt to determine what the Russian literary canon looks like today, and a new look at famous works: each book is accompanied by a foreword by the authors of “The Shelf.”