[1] Skabichevsky debuted as a published author in 1859 with an article called "The Hunter's Notes", in Rassvet (The Dawn), a magazine for young ladies.

The book has been credited with making the history of Russian literature the case for academic study for the first time, even if some of its ideological aspects caused controversy and evoke criticism, notably by Georgi Plekhanov, in 1897.

Skabichevsky's numerous memoirs (invariably ending with 1884, a year he considered fatal for himself due to the closing of Otechestvennye zapiski, after which his career started to decline) were of much interest to literary historians, as they featured vivid portraits of Nikolai Nekrasov, Grigory Eliseev, Vasily Sleptsov, Fyodor Reshetnikov, the brothers Vasily, Vladimir and Nikolai Kurochkins, among many others.

Despite having left behind him a great collection of high quality works, Skabichevsky died in poverty and oblivion, a bitterly disillusioned man.

Skabichevsky, however, rejected radical realism, claiming that the purpose of art isn't the reproduction of external reality, but rather to reflect the world as it appears to us subjectively.

He once wrote an article on The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoevsky and judged that the author "as an artist and novelist was very negligent and sometimes demonstrated an amazing lack of talent.