In 1886, Grigorovich famously encouraged young Anton Chekhov, telling him in a letter that he had a gift and should approach literature with more seriousness. "Your letter… struck me like a flash of lightning. I almost burst into tears, I was overwhelmed, and now I feel it left a deep mark on my soul," Chekhov replied. In his "Literary Memoirs" (1892–1993), Grigorovich created a vast panorama of the Russian 1840s–1850s literary scene and (while carefully avoiding political issues) left vivid portraits of the people he knew well, like Ivan Turgenev, Vasily Botkin and Leo Tolstoy.