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A collection of the best current criticism of the author's work.

Includes a brief biography of the writer, thematic and structural analysis of the work, critical views, and an index of themes and ideas.

Overview: In addition to the 77 letters of Dostoevksy, this book includes contemporary judgments in letters from Turgenev to Slutchevsky, Dostoevsky, Polonsky, Mme. Milyutin, and Saltykov, as well as letters from Pobyedonoszev to Aksakov, and Asksakov to Pobyedonoszev, and Tolstoy to Strachov. There are also recollections of Dostoevsky by D.V. Grigorovitch, A.P. Milyukov, P.K. Martyanov, Baron Alexander Vrangel, and Sophie Kovalevsky.

The Double, written in Dostoevsky's youth, was a sharp turn away from the realism of his first novel, Poor Folk. The first real expression of his genius, The Double is a surprisingly modern hallucinatory nightmare in which a minor official named Goliadkin becomes aware of a mysterious doppelgänger-a man who has his name and his face and who gradually and relentlessly begins to displace him with his friends and colleagues. In the dilemma of this increasingly...

"Dostoevsky's life was marked by brilliance and brutality. Sentenced to death as a young revolutionary, he survived mock execution and Siberian exile to live through a time of seismic change in Russia, eventually being accepted into the Tsar's inner circle. He had three great love affairs, each overshadowed by debilitating epilepsy and addiction to gambling. Somehow, amidst all this, he found time to write short stories, journalism and novels such...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of THE MOST DANGEROUS BOOK, the true story behind the creation of another masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THE SINNER AND THE SAINT is the deeply researched and immersive tale of how Dostoevsky came to write this great murder story-and why it changed the world. As a young man, Dostoevsky was a celebrated writer, but his involvement with the radical politics of his...