Fyodor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov was born in Yekaterinburg. He lost his mother early, who left her husband and moved with her 9-month-old son to Perm, where they lived under the care of her uncle and aunt. In 1851, he entered the Perm county school. In 1855, he found himself on trial due to the loss of an important government package, which he was sorting with his uncle, the postman. After a two-year trial, he was exiled for three months to the Solikamsk monastery for penance. After completing his studies at the Perm county school in 1859, he worked as a clerk in Yekaterinburg, where his house-museum is now located, as well as in Perm.

In 1863, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he worked in the Department of the Ministry of Finance and published essays on the lives of the social underclass in the newspaper 'Severnaya Pchela'. In 1864, thanks to N. G. Pomyalovsky, he became close to the editorial staff of the magazine 'Sovremennik'.

In 1865, he undertook a long trip to the Urals, collecting materials for a series of ethnographic essays about mining workers in Perm, Solikamsk, Usolye, Cherdyn, and Tagil. He worked for some time at the Demidov factory, which was reflected in his novels 'Gornorabochie', 'Glumovy', and other works.

A constant struggle with need and hereditary illness led to his early death. He died from pulmonary edema.

Before the first posthumous edition of the collected works of F. M. Reshetnikov, a brief obituary was published, stating that on March 9 at 9:50 PM, the famous novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Reshetnikov passed away at the age of 30. The funeral took place on Saturday the 13th, and his body was buried at the Volkov cemetery.