Letters of Fyodor Dostoevsky to his family and friends

by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ethel Colburn Mayne (Translator), Avrahm Yarmolinsky (Introduction)

Original publication date: 1917 Original Publisher: Chatto

Original online at archive.org

Genres: Nonfiction, Russia, Literature, Biography, Russian Literature, Classics

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский (Russian)

Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.

Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .

Many literary critics rate him among the greatest authors of world literature and consider multiple books written by him to be highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He is also well regarded as a philosopher and theologian.

(Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) (see also Fiodor Dostoïevski)

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is never clear to me. Is everything a coincidence or is it nothing?

My eschatology needs a tune-up.

Whatever the causal chain, I found myself listening to Eric Dolphy and Ben Webster while relishing these letters. All point back to a younger self, a hungrier Jon Faith. The letters themselves provide a comparable autobiography, but yet again this edition lacks quality annotation (that was my complaint with the collected letters of Simone de Beauvoir to J-P Sartre that I finished. The few footnotes referred to a film she had seen) but overall they delineate his youthful hubris, a burning desire to both create and change. The latter bit is tempered by his mock execution and exile to Siberia. The Dostoevsky that emerges is a bit of a holier-than-thou conservative kook. He ultimately goes abroad with his wife and they find themselves stuck for lack of cash. His time at the gaming tables didn't help. The reactions to both Turgenev and Tolstoy follow nearly opposite arcs over time. Whether Dostoevsky is soliciting a loan or commenting on the oppressive Italian summer, these letters are amazing. They are well worth anyone's time.

[Moderated]

Hamlet ! Hamlet ! When I think of his moving wild speech, in which resounds the groaning of the whole numbed universe, there breaks from my soul not one reproach, not one sigh. . . . That soul is then so utterly oppressed by woe that it fears to grasp the woe entire, lest so it lacerate itself.

I have a new plan : to go mad.

Brother, it is so sad to live without hope I When I look forward I shudder at the future. I move in a cold arctic atmosphere, wherein no sunlight ever pierces.

[Karim Aboelela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m happy this book exists, loved it!

[Jaye Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. What a hidden gem.

[violeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous intricate writing and then day to day casualties

TOOK ME SO FUCKING LONG TO TEAD