Maria spent her early years in the provinces, where she gained a critical but affectionate appreciation of provincial ways.

Her early education in languages and literature was most likely acquired while she was a companion to a daughter of the local nobility.

Several years later she began writing to support herself and her child, and to pay off some of her husband's debts.

Her two-volume collection Tales (1840) was well-received, as was her Sketches of Southern France and Nice (1844).

Some of Zhukova's stories are historical, and some are set abroad with non-Russian characters, a common feature of Russian fiction in the Romantic period.