Publisher's Synopsis
"Drawn from his first-hand observation of the countryside and its ways of life, Turgenev's anecdotes, portraits, and lyrical impressions depict the peasants and the tyranny of serfdom with such immediacy that when the first of these sketches appeared in book form in 1852 they were read as inflammatory polemic and led to his arrest and confinement at his estate of Spasskoye"--Back cover of different printing.
