[2] At the age of five Anisimova was stricken with smallpox, which left her nearly blind; she could only distinguish day from night and dark colors from bright.
From an early age she loved to be read to, but at first had no cause to hear works except church books, sermons, ancient stories, and fairy tales.
Donma tried to hide her creations, but they came to the attention of the county police chief, who asked Anisimova to expound on the village harvests.
Rumors about Anisimova's work spread throughout the Spassky district and came to the attention of the provincial governor, who informed Dmitry Bludov, the Minister of Internal Affairs and later president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, who was a man with a considerable interest in and knowledge of literature.
The collection of poems published by the Academy under the title Poems by Miss Onisimova, the Blind Daughter of a Village Sexton (St. Petersburg, 1838)[3] included "Sound of the Night Wind", "On the Death of a Friend", "Lullaby", "On the Birth of a Child", "To a Faded Flower", "Greeting", and "Depiction of the Harvest", and prefaces by Bludov and Shishkov.