[1] After the graduation in 1841 Zhemchuzhnikov joined the Russian Senate as an official; in 1847 he moved to the Ministry of Justice and in 1849 to the State Chancellery, all the while suffering greatly from "stupid mechanical routine" of these offices, seeking solace partly in high society's frivolous pleasures but more and more in literary exercises and numerous intellectual circles, including that of Mikhail Petrashevsky.

Not long before this, in 1850, Aleksey Zhemchuzhnikov made a debut in Sovremennik's February issue with his own comedy The Strange Night (Странная ночь).

On 1 January 1858, Zhemchuzhnikov quit the state service and started to enjoy "total private freedom," striking friendships with Sergey Aksakov, Ivan Turgenev, Vladimir Odoyevsky and Fyodor Tyutchev, among others.

[2] Creative crisis made Zhemchuzhnikov (who felt he was beginning to evolve into a sub-Nekrasov type of a poet) stop writing, leave the capital and move first to Kaluga, then Moscow.

Another collection, critically acclaimed Songs of the Old Age (Песни старости, 1900), made Zhemchuzhnikov one of Russia's most respected authors of the early 1900s.