It was first published in the 11th issue of the Krasnaya Nov literary magazine in 1936 and later the same year as a part of the collection Prerevolutionary Folklore of the Urals.

Additionally, his manuscripts demonstrate that a significant amount of professional work was put into the composition and language of the stories.

[14] In this skaz, a young factory worker named Stepan meets a woman in the unusual clothing.

The tale concludes with the words: "It's a chancy thing to meet her [The Mistress], it brings woe for a bad man, and for a good one there's little joy comes of it".

[29] During Soviet times, every edition of The Malachite Box was usually prefaced by an essay by a famous writer or scholar, commenting on the creativity of the Ural miners, cruel landlords, social oppression and the "great workers unbroken by the centuries of slavery".

Maya Nikulina [ru] comments that one editor wrote that the Casket was given to Stepan to remind him "of hard work and persistence".

[33] Nikulina believed that the Mistress is neither the rescuer nor the defender, does not protect the oppressed, she tests them, and there is not reason to picture her as an advocate of social justice.

He should be happily married, but he dies of love and separation, not of unbearable working conditions or severe punishments.

As one of the "mountain spirits", she does not hesitate to kill those who did not pass her tests, but even those who had been rewarded by her do not live happily ever after, as shown with Danilo in "The Stone Flower".

[34] She persistently and spitefully provokes the local administration, forcing the protagonist to relay the offensive message.

[35] Yelena Prikazchikova [ru] commented that union between the mountain spirit and the mortal is bound to be unhappy, because stone and living matter cannot join.

Although the characters are so familiar with her that the appearance of the Mistress is regarded as almost natural and even expected, the female domain collides with the ordered factory world, and brings in randomness, variability, unpredictability and capriciousness.

Direct contact with the female power is a violation of the world order and therefore brings destruction or chaos.

However the family happiness is either flawed, as in this story, unattainable ("Beloved Name", "Yermak's Swans"), or short-lived ("The Twisted Roll", "Sinyushka's Well").

[38] In 1941 Alexander Fridlender composed the ballet The Mountain Fairy Tale (Russian: Горная сказка, romanized: Gornaja skazka), based on the story.

The series included the following films: Sinyushka's Well (1973), The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (1975), The Malachite Casket (1976), The Stone Flower (1977), Podaryonka (based on "Silver Hoof", 1978[42]), Golden Hair (1979), and The Grass Hideaway (1982).

[40] Stepan's Remembrance, a 1976 Soviet film, is the adaptation of the tales "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" and "The Malachite Casket".

The Book of Masters, a 2009 Russian language fantasy film, is loosely based on Bazhov's tales, mostly "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain"[44] and "The Stone Flower".