Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891) was a Russian novelist and travel writer, whose highly esteemed novels dramatize social change in Russia and contain some of Russian literature's most vivid and memorable characters. Goncharov's most notable achievement lies in his three novels, of which the first was A Common Story (1917), a novel that immediately made his reputation when it was acclaimed by the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky. Oblomov (1915), a more mature work, generally accepted as one of the most important Russian novels, draws a powerful contrast between the aristocratic and capitalistic classes in Russia and attacks the way of life based on serfdom. Goncharov's third novel, The Precipice (1915), is a brilliant work of psychological prose. In all three novels Goncharov contrasts an easygoing dreamer with an opposing character who typifies businesslike efficiency; the contrast illumines social conditions in Russia at a time when rising capitalism and industrialization uneasily coexisted with the aristocratic traditions of old Russia. Oblomov is an indisputable classic of Russian literature, the artistic stature and cultural significance of which may be compared only to other such masterpieces as Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls, Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov.