The N. S. Leskov House Museum is the only literary-memorial museum in Russia dedicated to the writer N. S. Leskov, a native of Oryol. It is part of the Oryol United State Literary Museum of I. S. Turgenev.

Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov spent his childhood in three places: in the village of Gorokhovo in the Oryol district, where he was born; in Oryol, in the house that his father bought in 1832; and at the Panino farm in the Kromsky district, acquired by his father after his retirement. According to archival data, the plot where the Leskov House Museum is now located belonged to Semyon Dmitrievich Leskov, the writer's father, who was a noble assessor of the Oryol judicial chamber, in 1832 and 1842.

In the story "The Immortal Golovan," Leskov describes the location of the house: "Our house in Oryol was on Third Noble Street (now October Street) and stood third from the bank's cliff above the Orlik River." In 1850, the house burned down as a result of a city fire, and in the 1870s a new noble mansion was built on this site, which later became the N. S. Leskov House Museum.

In 1971 and 1972, the house was thoroughly renovated, and on July 2, 1974, the museum opened its doors. Until that time, from 1957 to 1973, there was a literary-memorial "Leskov Room" in the Museum of Oryol Writers. The museum's collection was significantly supplemented by the widow and son of N. S. Leskov, who donated almost all materials, archives, documents, and manuscripts of the writer. Many items from the Leskov family archive were gifted to the museum by the writer's great-granddaughter, ballerina Tatyana Yuryevna Leskova. The staff of the I. S. Turgenev Museum also collected materials from various museums across the country, which allowed for the creation of a full-fledged literary-memorial museum of Leskov.