Osip Mandelshtam was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw in 1891, but grew up chiefly in St Petersburg. His father was a leather merchant, and their existence was comfortable, in spite of the widespread persecution of Jews in turn-of-the-century Russia. Mandelshtam travelled in Europe and attended university, but abandoned his studies early to devote himself to writing. His first collection, Stone, published when he was only twenty-two, immediately established him as one of Russia's foremost poets. The revolution and the Soviet rule that followed created immense difficulties for Mandelshtam. Unwilling to bend his art to political ends, and increasingly critical of Stalin's leadership, he was imprisoned, tortured, exiled and generally persecuted. He continued to write, releasing another major collection, Tristia, and entrusting poems to his wife Nadezhda and his literary friends, who kept many of his works hidden from the authorities. Once more arrested, on his way to a prison camp, Mandelshtam died of heart failure, according to officials, in 1938.