Oskar Luts was born into a middle-class family in Järvepera, central Estonia, at that time in the governorate of Livonia (Russian Empire).

When World War I started, Oskar Luts was conscripted into the Russian army.

He worked as a military pharmacist in Pskov, Warsaw, Daugavpils, Vilnius and in Vitebsk (1915–1918), where he got married.

Oskar Luts was released from military duty for health reasons in the autumn of 1918 and went back to Tartu with his family the same year, where he started working as an apothecary.

Oskar Luts created his happiest literary works in the years before World War I.

This highly popular novel portrayed the daily school life of young people in rural Estonia.

However, although subsequent sequels (Tootsi pulm (Toots's Wedding), Argipäev (originally Äripäev, Workdays)) and the novel Sügis (Autumn) (part I – 1938) were written to meet public demand, they did not attain the popularity of his earlier works.

The second part of Sügis remained in manuscript for four decades, the entire story not being published until 1988.