[1] The story revolves around Elena Stakhova, a girl with a hypochondriac mother and an idle father, a retired guards lieutenant with a mistress.

On the eve of the Crimean War, Elena is pursued by a free-spirited sculptor (Pavel Shubin) and a serious-minded student (Andrei Berzyenev).

Turgenev had long meditated On the Eve, wishing to represent a new type of idealistic but self-sacrificing heroine whom he eventually embodied in Elena.

Following its long gestation, the book was written in a few months and first appeared in 1859 in the Moscow magazine The Russian Messenger, where it aroused interest but not universal approval.

Only one scene, namely the journey to Tsaritsino, was depicted fairly vividly and I retained its main features.”[4] According to Edward Garnett in his introduction to the first English translation (1895),[5] this reliance on a plot element based on the experience of another hindered Turgenev from characterising his hero successfully.