[1] His father Jože Kersnik was a district judge, while his mother Berta Höffern was a local noblewoman.

[2] He continued his studies under the private tutorship of Fran Levec, an influential Young Slovene literary historian.

He worked in the Austro-Hungarian administration in Ljubljana between 1874 and 1878, where he opened a civil law notary office in his native Brdo pri Lukovici.

He first wrote in late Romantic style, but under the influence of his personal friend Josip Jurčič, he switched to literary realism.

He was a prolific author of short stories, feuilletons, and satires, in which he critically assessed the backwardness of the Slovene Lands of his time, and the radicalization of political life.