Иван Гончаров

Russian novelist Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (/ˈɡɒntʃəˌrɔːf, -ˌrɒf/; Russian: Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Гончаро́в), best known for his novels

A Common Story

(1847),

Oblomov

(1859), and

The Precipice

(1869). He also served in many official capacities, including the position of censor.

Goncharov was born into the family of a wealthy merchant, elevated as a reward for military service of his grandfather to gentry status. A boarding school, then the Moscow college of commerce, and finally Moscow State University educated him. After graduating, he served for a short time in the office of the governor of Simbirsk before moving to Saint Petersburg, where he worked as government translator and private tutor, while publishing poetry and fiction in private almanacs. People published

A Common Story

, first novel of Goncharov, in Sovremennik in 1847.

Goncharov's second and best-known novel Oblomov was published in 1859 in Otechestvennye zapiski. His third and final novel The Precipice was published in Vestnik Evropy in 1869. He also worked as a literary and theatre critic. Towards the end of his life Goncharov wrote a memoir called An Uncommon Story, in which he accused his literary rivals, first and foremost Ivan Turgenev, of having plagiarized his works and prevented him from achieving European fame. The memoir was published in 1924. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, among others, considered Goncharov an author of high stature. Anton Chekhov is quoted as stating that Goncharov was "...ten heads above me in talent."