In revised form it appears to have been first published in The Yale Review, October, 1926. Along with other essays, it first appeared in book form in Woolf's The Common Reader: Second Series in 1932.

    In part it is a memoir of the three "Factories" that influenced his development as a human being and as a writer, yet the events depicted within the book are fictionalized and conveyed with the poetic verve and playfulness of form that have made Shklovsky a major figure in twentieth-century world literature. In addition to its fictional and biographical elements, Third Factory includes anecdotes, rants, social satire, literary theory, and anything else that Shklovsky, with an artist's unerring confidence, chooses to include.

    D. S. Mirsky constantly keeps in mind the ever-colorful and ever-changing aspects of the one in discussing the other. Sound in judgment, luminescent, and exquisitely written, Mirsky's book is essential reading for anyone interested in one of the world's great literatures. A History of Russian Literature covers the beginning of Russian fiction, the Age of Classicism, the Age of Gogol, and the poets, journalists, novelists, and playwrights of the Age of Realism.