Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (1821-89) was recognised in her day, both at home and abroad, as Russia's greatest writer after Tolstoy and Turgenev. In her novella, The Brother, she tells the story of the three Chirkin sisters, who are trapped on their remote, decrepit estate, and their brother, a corrupt official who siphons off what little they have to support his extravagant life of gambling and social climbing in St Petersburg.
