The Precipice (), also translated as Malinovka Heights, is the third and the last novel by Ivan Goncharov, first published in January–May 1869 issues of Vestnik Evropy magazine. The novel, conceived in 1849, took twenty years to be completed and has been preceded by the publication of the three extracts: "Sophja Nikolayevna Belovodova" (Sovremennik, No.2, 1860), "Grandmother" and "Portrait" (Otechestvennye Zapiski, Nos.1-2, 1861). The author considered it to be his most definitive work, in which he fully realized his grand artistic ambition. Less successful than its predecessor Oblomov (1859), The Precipice is still regarded as one of the Russian literature's classics. Background According to Goncharov, the idea of the third novel came to him in 1849 when he returned to his native Simbirsk after fourteen years of absence. "Old memories of early youth, new encounters, landscapes of Volga banks, local scenes and situations, customs and manners, – all this stirred up my fantasies and I drew the plan for the novel in my head adding finishing touches to Oblomov. Both projects had to be aborted as I embarked upon the round the world journey on frigate "Pallada" in 1852, 1853 and 1854. It was only after this journey's end, and when the book Frigate "Pallada" has been written and published, that I was able to return to these novels, both still only conceived. [...] In 1857-1858 I finished and published Oblomov and only after that was able to concentrate on The Precipice, some fragments of which I had read to my friends and others published in magazines in 1860–1861," he remembered. Only in 1868, while in Germany and France, Goncharov completed the fourth and fifth parts of the novel. Back in Saint Petersburg he revised the text and added an epilogue. On August 21, 1866, in a letter to Alexander Nikitenko Goncharov wrote: One character, that of Mark Volokhov, has undergone considerable evolution. Initially, according to the author, "this figure was never supposed to fit into the novel's major scheme, being part of a background, in shadows," a mere "introductory face, serving for Vera's character fuller realization." Soon, though, he turned out to be one of the novel's most prominent figures. Among rough drafts of The Precipice there was Volokhov's short 'biography' which showed him to be initially a "domestic kind of a nihilist," struggling in vain to realize his life potential to the full, then evolving into a kind