The article presents an analysis of the story by A.S. Green Ratcatcher . The study was carried out using motivational, plot analysis. The scientific novelty of the proposed work lies in the specificity of the approach to the work itself: the poetics of the story is analyzed in the context of the urban fantasy. According to the author's hypothesis, the peculiarities of the form of the fantastic manifestation make it possible to consider the Ratcatcher as a precursor of urban fantasy. The chronotope of the story is based on the motive of a double world: the abandoned building of the Central Bank in the center of Petrograd center is also a habitat for were rats who dream about the conquering of the whole country. The author of the article identifies the elements of the folklore tradition that modulate the images of rats and introduce the elements of the miraculous, the extraordinary into the text. Analysis of the text shows that the story contains a high percentage of autobiographical data: though the scene where the main protagonists meet, the author reproduces his own story of meeting his second wife, the date of the beginning of the story also coincides with the date of A. Green's arrival in Petrograd, etc. The story also contains some elements of the "Petersburg text": the presence of city image, which sometimes acts as an independent character, a specific suggestive atmosphere formed by the thinking of a hero-city dweller, a tradition of portraying Nevsky Prospekt as an infernal locus. The story only partially refers to urban fantasy, since fantastic events are depicted using the "double motivation" technique, that is, they can be explained by the visions of the hero in a state of illness. The materials of the article can be of significance both for researchers of modern domestic fantasy and for literary scholars studying the work of A.S. Green.
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