Maria KiselyovaMaria Vladimirovna Kiselyova (, nee Begicheva, c.1859-1921, was a children's writer who contributed mostly to the magazines Children's Leisure and Rodnik. She was the wife of Alexey Sergeyevich Kiselyov, the owner of the Babkino estate nearby Voskresensk, where Chekhov and his family spent the summers of 1885, 1886 and 1887. Thirty-five Chekhov's letters to Kiselyova (1885-1897) are extant, and thirty-one of her letters, written in 1886-1900. - Commentaries to Chekhov's Correspondence enjoyed "The Witch" and compared it favourably to another story, "Mire". "For me... the strongest point of 'The Witch' is its realism... The whole scenery, the heroine, her husband and their guests are portrayed in the most masterful fashion. While reading it I can blush a bit, but what I cannot do is say something in it does not ring true," she wrote Chekhov on 18 January 1887.
