V.V. Krestovsky (1840–1895) is a remarkable Russian writer, author of widely known novel “Petersburg Slums.” The trilogy “Egyptian Darkness,” published in the late 1880s, was long considered tendentious and was not published in Soviet times. Dramatic events in the life of the main heroine, Tamara Bendavid, the heiress of a wealthy Jewish family who accepted Christianity for her lover and was deceived by him, unfold against the background of historical events in Russia of the 1870s, portrayed by the author with true knowledge of the material. Vivid, figurative language and an engrossing plot inspire deep interest in the reader, who will have to draw their own conclusions about the “tendentiousness” of the novel.