The book ‘Biographies of Russian Poets and Poetry Excerpts’, compiled by Nikolay Herbel, is located in the children’s room under glass. Here lived the youngest children of the Ulyanovs — Olga, Maria, and Dmitry.
This chrestomathy was given to Olga Ulyanova in the gymnasium on June 5, 1886. On the first page of the book there is an inscription in ink: “For excellent academic results and piousness the Conference of Simbirsk Mariinsky gymnasium for girls awarded the pupil of the third grade Olga Ulyanova with this book and a letter of commendation. June 5, 1886.” Below there are signatures of the teachers, the Chief warden, and the Principal of the gymnasium Fyodor Kerensky, who was also the Principal of the Simbirsk gymnasium for boys. The inscription is authenticated with a round seal.

Anna Ulyanova-Elizarova, in her book “Memories of Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov” in 1930, wrote:

Poet and translator Nikolay Herbel graduated from the Nezhynsky Lyceum of the Prince Bezborodko. His works were published in St. Petersburg magazines, in 1854, he published a verse translation of ‘The Tale of Igor’s Campaign’ and in the late 1850s with his wife Olga began publishing foreign poets-classics in Russian. With the help of poets and translators Vladimir Benediktov, Apollon Maykov, Lev Mey, Fyodor Tyutchev, Afanasy Fet, and others, Herbel in the 1860s and 1870s published collections of works by Byron, Goethe, Hoffmann, Shakespeare, and Schiller. He also compiled “Poetry of the Slavs” in 1871, “English Poets” in 1875, and “German Poets” in 1877.

Herbel published his anthology “Biographies of Russian Poets and Poetry Excerpts” in 1873. He wrote: “I meant to give the Russian public a possibly complete collection of selected works of Russian poets, not only the most important ones but also those who wrote only some two or three poems: from [Mikhail] Lomonosov to [Viktor] Burenin and [Semyon] Frug.” The collection includes 125 biographies of the poets and their selected poems.