Description
This book, first published in 1978, demonstrates how Dostoyevsky’s novels grew directly out of the pressures of their creator’s tormented experience and personality. Ronald Hingley draws upon important fresh source material, which includes the definitive Soviet edition of Dostoyevsky’s works with drafts and variants, Soviet research on the circumstances of his father’s death, and a newly deciphered section of the diary of his second wife, Anna. Hingley considers with his analysis all Dostoyevsky’s works, the ideas they contain, their varying artistic success, and their contemporary critical reception. He convincingly present’s Dostoyevsky’s genius at its most powerful when most on the attack.
Table of Contents
1. Boy and Youth 2. Cadet and Officer 3. Apprentice Author: Poor Folk and The Double 4. Political Criminal 5. Convict and Exile: Uncle’s Dream and The Village of Stepanchikovo 6. Memoirist and Journalist: Insulted and Injured; Memoirs from the House of the Dead; and Memoirs from the Underground 7. Emerging Genius: Crime and Punishment and The Gambler 8. Reluctant European: The Idiot 9. Scourge of Socialism: The Eternal Husband and Devils 10. Uneasy Compromiser: A Raw Youth 11. Arbiter of Destiny: The Diary of a Writer 12. Man of the Hour: The Brothers Karamazov
