The paper deals with the main provisions of the book by D. I. Cherashniaya «“It's not me already who sings – my breath does...”. The last year of Osip Mandelstam’s creative work». The scientific work of D. I. Cherashniaya is considered in the context of the investigations of the late works by Osip Mandelstam, a description is given of the scientist’s contribution to the development of the problem of investigating Osip Mandelstam’s late verses. Particular emphasis is also placed on the comparison of the imagery of Mandelstam’s poems with extra-literary, artistic implications and on the analysis of various rough variants from the stand point of the of the process of changing images and their manifestation as the poet moves from variant to variant. The paper emphasizes that D. I. Cherashniaya reveals subject relations, various aspects of the author's voice and their interaction in Mandelstam’s later poetry. The paper analyses the structure and the contents of the book that make it possible to actualize the possibilities of preservation, existence and perception of Osip Mandelstam’s poetic world.