Katerina is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, whose family are cold and unforgiving. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband's estate, a force is unleashed inside her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Leskov's wrote the novella in the Kiev university's punishment room. He described how his hair stood on end as he worked on it alone in that cold place and swore he would never describe such horrors again. It was published in Dostoyevsky's Epoch magazine in 1865 and is a picture of almost unrelieved wickedness and passion. Ignored at first by contemporaries it is now regarded as a masterpiece.