The Simpleton (Russian: Тюфя′к, romanized: Tyufyak, translated also as The Muff) is the debut novel by Alexei Pisemsky, written in the late 1840 and first published in October and November 1850 by Moskvityanin.
Here Pisemsky got the date wrong: Boyarshina was sent to OZ in 1848 and, as the Soviet scholar Mikhail Eryomin noted, "there are reasons to believe that The Simpleton' rough copy was ready in 1848, too.
I gave it the title "The Family Dramas" (Семейные драмы), but should it appear to be incompatible either with the censorial demands or the magazine's general mood, please change it to whatever you like: "Bashmetyev", "The Muff", whatever.
The anonymous Otechestvennye Zapiski reviewer called it the best work of fiction published in Russia in 1850 and praised the author's "gift for depicting the real life, backed up by serious attitude.
Disputing some of Vissarion Belinsky's ideas, the critic suggested that the formula of success was, "simplicity of details, intricacy of fantasy," something that he deemed Pisemsky's novel, apparently, as lacking.
[5] Critic Stepan Dudyshkin in his "Russian Literature in 1850" review found Pisemsky's debut novel's characters too grotesque, Bashmetyev's major weakness being his "inability to act.