 Teffi was first introduced to literature when, as a young girl, she read "Childhood" and "Boyhood" by Leo Tolstoy, and the fiction of Alexander Pushkin.Her own first published poetry appeared in the journal "The North" in 1901 under her full name.In 1905 her first story, "The Day Has Passed", was published in the journal "The Fields", also under her full name.