The article focuses on the notebooks of M. M. Zoshchenko. The materials from the museums of St. Petersburg, IRLI (the Institute of Russian Literature), and, first of all, of the funds of the State Literary Museum «XXth century». M. M. Zoshchenko’s working notebooks, pocket-books are undoubtedly the most important source for the scientific biography of the writer. They represent the test-bench or the testing ground for the development, masks, plots, a range of techniques in the course of M. M. Zoshchenko’s oeuvre.