Dostoevsky: The miraculous years, 1865-1871. 4, Volume 4

Joseph Frank

Princeton University Press, Dec 9, 1996 - Biography & Autobiography - 523 pages

This volume, the fourth of five planned in Joseph Frank's widely acclaimed biography of Dostoevsky, covers the six most remarkably productive years in the novelist's entire career. It was in this short span of time that Dostoevsky produced three of his greatest novels--Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Devils--and two of his best novellas, The Gambler and The Eternal Husband. All these masterpieces were written in the midst of harrowing practical and economic circumstances, as Dostoevsky moved from place to place, frequently giving way to his passion for roulette. Having remarried and fled from Russia to escape importuning creditors and grasping dependents, he could not return for fear of being thrown into debtor's prison. He and his young bride, who twice made him a father, lived obscurely and penuriously in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, as he toiled away at his writing, their only source of income. All the while, he worried that his recurrent epileptic attacks were impairing his literary capacities. His enforced exile intensified not only his love for his native land but also his abhorrence of the doctrines of Russian Nihilism--which he saw as an alien European importation infecting the Russian psyche. Two novels of this period were thus an attempt to conjure this looming spectre of moral-social disintegration, while The Idiot offered an image of Dostoevsky's conception of the Russian Christian ideal that he hoped would take its place.

What people are saying

Review: Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871 (Dostoevsky biography #4)

User Review  - Bryn Hammond - Goodreads

In which he knuckles down to writing novels. He marries his stenographer who seems to be the doormat-type. Yes, but see the last instalment of his life; and he's absolutely desperate to deliver his ...

Review: Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871 (Dostoevsky biography #4)

User Review  - Eduardo - Goodreads

Excellent!

Contents

• Introduction: 3
• The Unhappiest of Mortals: 9
• Khlestakov in Wiesbaden: 25
• Our Poor Little Defenseless Boys and Girls: 42
• The Sources of Crime and Punishment: 60
• From Novella to Novel: 80
• A Reading of Crime and Punishment: 96
• REMARRIAGE: 149
• A Little Diamond: 151
• The Gambler: 170
• Escape and Exile: 184
• Turgenev and BadenBaden: 204
• Geneva Life among the Exiles: 223
• In Search of a Novel: 241
• A Perfectly Beautiful Man: 256
• An Inconsolable Father: 276
• Across the Alps: 294
• The Idiot: 316
• Historical Visions: 342
• THE PAMPHLET AND THE POEM: 363
• The Life of a Great Sinner: 365
• The Eternal Husband: 382
• Fathers Sons and Stavrogin: 396
• Exiles Return: 413
• History and Myth in The Devils I: 435
• History and Myth in The Devils II: 453
• The Book of the Impostors: 472
• Conclusion: 499
• Abbreviations: 503
• Notes: 505
• Index: 517

About the author

Joseph Frank is the author of an award-winning multivolume biography of Dostoevsky.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Dostoevsky: The miraculous years, 1865-1871. 4, Volume 4; Princeton paperbacks
• Author: Joseph Frank
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1996
• ISBN: 0691015872, 9780691015873
• Length: 523 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Biography & Autobiography / Literary; History / Europe / Russia & the Former Soviet Union