FYODOR MIKAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY's life was as dark and dramatic as
the great novels he wrote. He was born in Moscow in 1821. A short
first novel, Poor Folk (1846) brought him instant success, but his
writing career was cut short by his arrest for alleged subversion
against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849. In prison he was given the "silent
treatment" for eight months (guards even wore velvet soled boots)
before he was led in front a firing squad. Dressed in a death
shroud, he faced an open grave and awaited execution, when
suddenly, an order arrived commuting his sentence. He then spent
four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison, where he began to
suffer from epilepsy, and he returned to St. Petersburg only a full
ten years after he had left in chains.
His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a profoundly
religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels. But it
was his fortuitous marriage to Anna Snitkina, following a period of
utter destitution brought about by his compulsive gambling, that
gave Dostoevsky the emotional stability to complete Crime and
Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868-69), The Possessed (1871-72),and
The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80). When Dostoevsky died in 1881, he
left a legacy of masterworks that influenced the great thinkers and
writers of the Western world and immortalized him as a giant among
writers of world literature.
: " The best [translation of "Crime and Punishment"] currently available... An especially faithful re-creation... with a coiled-spring kinetic energy... Don't miss it." - "Washington Post Book World" " This fresh, new translation... provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale achingly alive... It succeeds beautifully." - "San Francisco Chronicle" " Reaches as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as is possible in English... The original's force and frightening immediacy is captured... The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard English version." - "Chicago Tribune"
: " The best [translation of "Crime and Punishment"] currently available... An especially faithful re-creation... with a coiled-spring kinetic energy... Don't miss it." - "Washington Post Book World" " This fresh, new translation... provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale achingly alive... It succeeds beautifully." - "San Francisco Chronicle" " Reaches as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as is possible in English... The original's force and frightening immediacy is captured... The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard English version." - "Chicago Tribune"
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