[1] Verbitskaya was born in Voronezh, where her father was a professional military serviceman, and her mother was an amateur actress.

In 1879 she entered the Moscow Conservatory to study singing, leaving after two years to take a job as a music teacher at her former boarding school.

[9][2] During World War I, she published her best extended prose, the novelette "Elena Pavlovna and Seryozhka," first in a journal for women, then as in book form.

She also published the first two parts of a planned trilogy, "The Yoke of Love," based on the lives of her grandmother and mother (1914–15).

The first volume, sub-titled "The Actress," is particularly interesting as it traces her grandmother's successful acting career and rather modern interpretations of some of Shakespeare's heroines.

[11] "To My Reader," in: Russia Through Women's Eyes, Toby W. Clyman and Judith Vowles, eds.,Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 335–80.

"My Reminiscences: Youth, Dreams," in: Russian Women Writers, Christine D. Tomei, Garland Publishing,1999, Vol.