![]() Unlike Tolstoy, a real nobleman, Dostoevsky had experienced much of what he criticised in Russia in his time. He himself set out to be a professional writer, still not a wholly respectable occupation in spite of the example of Pushkin. His father was an army doctor and his grandfather a provincial clergyman. ![]() Dostoevsky’s world is not easily accessible even to those who have read widely in its literature, and his ideas are certainly not self-explanatory.ĭostoevsky was born in 1821 into a family that was legally classified as noble but would not have ranked as such by any other standard. This would be a marvellous achievement if it could be done. ![]() The scale of the work is due mainly to the fact that it sets out to be not just a biography, but a work of literary criticism and a social and intellectual history of 19th-century Russia. ![]() ‘Monumental’ is the standard clichZ for such an enterprise, and Frank’s is certainly that. The publication of this volume marks the completion of Joseph Frank’s enormous biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, a work which he has spent half a lifetime in writing. ![]()
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