Bely's second novel, Petersburg, has a more complex history than any of his other works. It was originally planned, under the title The Wayfarers (Putniki), as a continuation of The Silver Dove and the second part of the prospective trilogy. In the course of composition, however, it grew into a separate work with a different setting and different characters. Bely envisaged several possible titles for this new novel: The Admiralty Spire, Evil Shadows, The Lacquered Carriage, The Red Domino; its definitive title was the idea of Vyacheslav Ivanov, whom Bely called the ‘godfather’ of his novel.

The novel exists in two principal versions. The first was published in three numbers of the almanac Sirin in 1913 and 1914, and in book form in 1916 with the pagination unchanged; the second, considerably shortened, edition was published in Berlin in 1922. There are, however, a number of other versions, either extant in part or in full, or reported as having existed. The first of these dates from 1911 and was to have been published in the periodical Russian Thought, but was rejected by the editor, P.B. Struve. This version was consulted by Ivanov-Razumnik, but is apparently no longer extant. A separate edition was then planned with the publisher K.F. Nekrasov, of Yaroslavl′, of which nine printer's sheets (the first chapter and approximately half of the second) were printed before the rights were transferred by agreement to Sirin.