The life of Mikhail Prishvin (1873-1954), a negligent and impudent student, expelled from the Yelets gymnasium according to the report of his teacher V. V. Rozanov, an insecure young man, a Marxist who was imprisoned for revolutionary views, a student of the University of Leipzig, a naturalist writer and researcher of sectarianism, who deserved the condescending attention of Z. N. Gippius, D. S. Merezhkovsky and A. A. Blok, a villager who said many bitter words about the Russian the village and the peasants, finally, the order-bearer, caressed by the authorities, is as interesting and colorful as his thoughts about it are deep and meaningful. The writer devoted his life to the search for happiness, he also wrote his books about happiness - and life did not deceive him.This is the first detailed biography of Prishvin, written by the writer and literary critic Alexey Varlamov. The author shows his hero in all the complexity of his character and fate, removing the textbook gloss from the amazing life of one of the greatest Russian thinkers of the XX century.