Dostoevsky - by Joseph Frank (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Volume three of one of the greatest literary biographies of our time

Joseph Frank's award-winning, five-volume Dostoevsky is widely recognized as the best biography of the Russian novelist in any language and one of the greatest literary biographies ever written. In this monumental work, Frank blends biography, intellectual history, and literary criticism to illuminate Dostoevsky's works and set them in their personal, historical, and ideological context. More than a biography in the usual sense, this is a cultural history of nineteenth-century Russia, providing both a rich picture of the world in which Dostoevsky lived and a major reinterpretation of his life and work.

This volume begins with the writer's return to Saint Petersburg after a ten-year Siberian exile and traces how his engagement in the cultural and social ferment of Russia in the early 1860s led to his discovery of the themes that would underlie his mature masterpieces.

Review Quotes

"A narrative of such compelling precision, thoroughness and insight as to give the reader a sense not just of acquaintanceship, but of complete identification with Dostoevsky, of looking through his eyes and understanding with his mind."---Helen Muchnic, Boston Globe

"This is unquestionably the best account we have of Dostoevsky in his time."---Donald Fanger, New Republic

"Will rightly be considered one of the finest achievements of American literary scholarship."---René Wellek, Washington Post

About the Author

Joseph Frank (1918-2013) was professor emeritus of Slavic and comparative literature at Stanford and Princeton. The five volumes of his Dostoevsky biography won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, two James Russell Lowell Prizes, and two Christian Gauss Awards, and have been translated into numerous languages.