Sofia Pavlovna Soboleva was a Russian writer who used the pseudonym V. Samoilovich .

Biography

Soboleva was born in Shlisselburg

Shlisselburg

Shlisselburg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated at the head of the Neva River on Lake Ladoga, east of St. Petersburg. From 1944 to 1992, it was known as Petrokrepost...

, where her father was an engineer. She was educated at home until the age of eight, and then sent to Madame Kamerat's Pension in St Petersburg. Soboleva began publishing her works in her early twenties. Her early story Pros and Cons was published while she was working in the editorial offices of Otechestvennye Zapiski

Otechestvennye Zapiski

Otechestvennye Zapiski was a Russian literary magazine published in St Petersburg on a monthly basis between 1818 and 1884. The journal served liberal-minded readers, known as the intelligentsia...

. After her marriage to a civil servant fell apart, she supported herself by working as a private teacher.

From 1867 she turned to children's writing and journalistic work, and was involved in the publication of several early childrens journals. Her works were popular, but her financial circumstances remained difficult due to her adopting and caring for a number of poor children. She died in St Petersburg in 1884.

English translations

• Pros and Cons, from An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing, Oxford, 1994.