This book is about Russian writers of the 19th century and their wives and girlfriends. In particular, the short stories and novels talk about Alexander Pushkin and his wife Natalie; Ivan Turgenev and the women he loved (Pauline Viardot, Varvara Bogdanovich, Maria Markovich); Alexander Herzen and his wife Natalie, Vissarion Belinsky, his wife and Sasha Bakunina; Nekrasov and Avdotya Panaeva. In many stories, it is the woman who becomes the main character. The author shows a female point of view on events that were previously described by male writers.