The Golovlyov Family ... is a novel by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, written in the course of five years, first published in 1880, and generally regarded as the author's magnum opus.

The Golovlyov Family is regarded as a classic of Russian literature. According to D. S. Mirsky, it is "the gloomiest book in all Russian literature", and "this one book" places the author "in the very front line of Russian realistic novelists and secures him a permanent place among the national classics".
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Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin (27 January 1826 – 10 May 1889), born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during his lifetime by the pen name Nikolai Shchedrin was a major Russian writer and satirist of the 19th century. He spent most of his life working as a civil servant in various capacities. After the death of poet Nikolay Nekrasov, he acted as editor of a Russian literary magazine Otechestvenniye Zapiski until the Tsarist government banned it in 1884. In his works Saltykov mastered both stark realism and satirical grotesque merged with fantasy. His most famous works, the family chronicle novel The Golovlyov Family (1880) and the novel The History of a Town (1870), also translated as Foolsburg, became important works of 19th-century fiction, and Saltykov is regarded as a major figure of Russian literary Realism. 

--Wikipedia