For those of you that are interested in great world Authors and literature, I thought I would share the current book that I am reading, titled "The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky". The book contains two (2) short stories that I do not have, this completes my Dostoevsky collection. I purchased the book "used" for just a few Dollars through Amazon.com. The book is in excellent condition, however, the book's cover has been consumed by time. I made a plastic page sheet cover to protect the well worn cover from future damage.
The translation of this older book is excellent!
The first book that I read of Fyodor Dostoevsky was "Crime and Punishment" many years ago.
He is my favorite Russian Author. (I have not read many Russian authored books.)
From my own personal research of Fyodor Dostoevsky, I have discovered that he was not a visually attractive man, he walked with a constant limp, and appeared to some people as "deformed". He was also an "Epileptic".
However, in the books of Dostoevsky that I have read, he writes about love, beauty, and the dignity of the human spirit.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821.
Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were hard-working, religious people but poor. His first work, "Poor Folk," (1846), made his name popular and he found himself an instant celebrity. A brilliant career seemed opened to him, but in 1849 at the age of 28 he was arrested and condemned to death in the Russian empire.
He was found to be a member of a group of young men who met to read "Fourier and Proudhon," he was accused of "taking part in conversations against the censorship in Russia... and of knowing of the intention to use a printing press." For involvement with the politically subversive 'Petrashevsky circle' and until 1854 he lived as a convict in prison at Omsk, Siberia. He served nearly 6 years in jail.
Below is his current and actual prison cell, preserved in the Omsk Siberia Prison museum. However, I assume that the flashy paint and tidiness was not actually like it was when Dostoevsky served his many years there. This is where Dostoevsky wrote many books and short stories.
After his first eight months in jail, he was taken to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot with many other prison inmates. Fortunately, he was informed that his Majesty had spared their lives. The sentence was commuted to hard labor -- four years of penal servitude in Siberia, where he began his book: "Dead House." Dostoevsky wrote many books in prison.
In 1864 he lost first wife Maria, and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother's debts. Weighed down by debt, he wrote at heart-breaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife, "Apollinaria Suslova," eighteen years his junior.
He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic, "He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live."
The major novels of his late period are "The Idiot (1868), Demons (1871-2) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80)" He died in 1881.
In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and was received with demonstrations of love and honor. A few months later he died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners.