Grigorovich's second short novel "Anton Goremyka" (Luckless Anton, 1847), promptly published this time by "Sovremennik", made the author famous. "Not a single Russian novel has yet brought upon me such an impression of horrible, damning doom," Belinsky confided in a letter to critic Vasily Botkin. The realistic treatment of the life of Russian peasants in these two novels was praised by fellow writers Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Leo Tolstoy among others, and had a considerable impact on the writing of that period. "There'd be not a single educated man in those times and in the years to come who'd read "Luckless Anton" without tears of passion and hatred, damning horrors of serfdom," wrote Pyotr Kropotkin. "Anton Goremyka" was included into the list of the "most dangerous publications of the year," alongside articles by Belinsky and Alexander Hertzen, by the Special Literature and Publishing Committee.