publisher author of travel essays
Mikhail Antonovich Verner was born on December 4, 1858, in Khersons'ka Oblast', Ukraine into a noble family of a college assessor who served in the Kherson Governorate. His brother Evgeny Verner was a Russian comedy writer and publisher. Since the early 1880s, the Verner family had lived in Moscow.
Mikhail Antonovich was a student of the Zhytomyr Gymnasium, and from 1875 to 1879, he studied at the Naval Cadet Corps in Saint Petersburg.
Mikhail Antonovich served in the Navy, and in 1882 he retired with the rank of lieutenant. In the years 1882-1884, he was a permanent writer of the Moskovskiye Vedomosti newspaper. He periodically published in several other literary magazines and newspapers. Impressions during his stay on the ships of the Russian fleet abroad served as the basis for many of his stories, essays, ethnographic sketches, and reports. A commitment to the genre of essay and adventure story was a feature of Verner's work.
In Moscow, Mikhail Antonovich published numerous books on travel notes and essays, such as Modern Japan (From the Notebook of a Sailor) (1882), Mediterranean Sea Trip (1883), Far From Home. Review of the European exhibitions of 1883 (1884), Essays and Stories of Sea Life (1884), Country of Dams. Essays on Modern Holland (1884), Letters From Italy (1885).
Mikhail Antonovich, together with his brother Evgeny, published the Vokrug Sveta magazine (1885-1891), which included fiction works about travels and adventures, including a translation of the works of L. Bussenard, J. Verne, T.M. Reed. Mikhail and Evgeny studied publishing in Paris and successfully applied European experience in the magazine.
Mikhail Antonovich was also the publisher of the humor magazines Sverchok (1886-1891) and Drug Detei (1888). The magazines were published weekly and belonged to the most widely read periodicals in Russia. The first two were especially popular, although they did not enjoy a reputation among journalists. The magazines collaborated with many prominent artists, cartoonists, tourists, and comedy writers, but most of the materials were given by the Verners themselves, who resorted to numerous pseudonyms. In part, this helped to make the magazines affordable to the general public.
The brothers also published books (their editions were valued for their elegant design), including A.P. Chekhov's collection of short stories Innocent Speeches in 1887. In 1891, Sverchok ceased to exist, and the right to publish the Vokrug Sveta magazine passed in June 1891 to I.D. Sytin.
After the sale of Vokrug Sveta, the Verner brothers moved to Paris, where they founded a company for the production of motor bicycles, prototypes of motorcycles that subsequently appeared.
