Annenkov wrote his essay-memoir about Pisemsky at the end of 1881 - at the very beginning of 1882, that is, shortly after the writer’s death (January 1881), and called this essay “a lengthy obituary.” The memoirist had rich biographical material at his disposal , collected by that time by the writer’s wife and son, but used it little. In a letter to E. P. Pisemskaya dated October 28, 1881, he emphasized that he was not writing a biography, but rather memoirs, and set as his goal “to determine with some certainty the moral qualities” of A. F. Pisemsky, “those riches of the soul, thoughts and talent that underlay his nature"