SOURCE: "Goncharov," in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature: Studies of Ten Russian Writers, edited by John Fennell, University of California Press, 1973, pp. 130-42.

In the following essay, Gifford analyzes Goncharov's A Common Story, Oblomov, and The Precipice, comparing these novels with the works of Goncharov's Russian contemporaries and examining critical opinion on the trilogy.

Outside Russia Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (1812-91) is known as the author of one classic novel published in 1859, Oblomov. In Russia too his reputation depends principally on this work; but he always insisted that it formed part of a trilogy, with A Common Story (Obyknovennaya istoriya) (1847), and the long-delayed successor to Oblomov, The Precipice (Obryv) (1869). Three periods of Russian life were meant to find their reflection in these novels 'as in a drop of water'.¹ It is certainly true that the images for The Precipice were taking shape while he was still at the beginning of Oblomov...