Patterned on the novels of the Brontë sisters, Antonina is a poignant account of a young Russian whose life is shaped by the cruel neglect of her stepparents, the financial ruin of her father and husband, and—the centerpiece of the novel—her failed love affair with a sensitive but weak young man.

EVGENIYA TUR (1815–1892) was the author of numerous prose pieces and a series of popular children's books. Eveniya Tur (the pseudonym of Elizaveta Sailhas de Tournemire, 1815-92) is considered by many to be the foremost Russian woman writer of her era. 

MICHAEL R. KATZ, chair of the Department of Slavic Languages at the University of Texas at Austin, is the translator of Polinka Saks and The Story of Aleksei Dmitrich by Alexander Druzhinin and Prologue by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, both published by Northwestern University Press. Jehanne Gheith is assistant professor in the Department of Slavic Languages at Duke University; she also teaches in the Women's Studies Program.