Author. His fables have long been regarded as classics of Russian literature. Like Aesop and La Fontaine, Krylov used animals to comment on human foibles, though with a more pointed satirical bent. Some of his innocent-sounding tales were veiled attacks of the autocracy and society of his time. He wrote over 200 fables, published in nine books between 1809 and 1843. They include "The Wolf in the Kennel", "The Crow and the Fox", "Liar", "The Swan, the Pike and the Crab", "Friendship Among Dogs", "Multi-Colored Sheep", and "The Pond and the River". Krylov was born in Moscow, the son of a military bureaucrat who died when he was 10. He moved to St. Petersburg in 1782 and worked as a minor civil servant while revealing precocious gifts as a playwright, selling his first comedy, "Kofeinitsa", at age 14. This was followed by "Filomena" (1786), "Americans" (1787) and "Prokazniki" (1788). By 1789 he had given up government service and was co-editor of the daring humor magazine "Mail of Spirits", through which he gained a reputation as a leading figure of his country's Enlightenment period. The progress of the French Revolution prompted Catherine the Great to step up political repressions and Krylov eventually chose several years of self-exile over prison. In 1806 he resurfaced in St. Petersburg with two hit plays, "The Fashion Shop" and "A Lesson to the Daughters". That same year he brought out his Russian translation of La Fontaine's "Fables" and found an ideal genre to continue writing satire with little risk of censorship or arrest. The formula didn't always work; a handful of his allegories were banned until the 1860s. But for the most part Krylov's fables were very well received, even in official circles. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1811, employed at the Imperial Public Library from 1812 to 1841 (becoming head of the Russian Books Department), and was awarded a pension by the Czar in 1838. In his later years he was one of the most esteemed men in Russian letters and counted Pushkin among his followers. The statue of Krylov in the Summer Garden (1855) is one of St. Petersburg's most recognizable landmarks.