His father Alexey Vasilyevich was a military man, his mother Josefina Adamovna, née Welbutovich-Paplonska, belonged to the Polish szlachta.

He studied at the First Moscow Gymnasium and later, when the family moved to their county estate in Saratov Governorate, at the Penza Institute for Nobility.

[1] In the early 1860s Sleptsov organized a women's commune in Saint Petersburg and set up a society for female translators.

He wrote fiction for several magazines including Otechestvennye Zapiski, Russkaya Rech, and Sovremennik, where he published his novel Hard Times in 1865.

[2][3] In 1866 he was arrested for political activities, and for his association with Dmitry Karakozov, a man who had attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II.