Russian author, born at Moscow on the 30th of October 1821, was the second son of a retired military surgeon of a decayed noble family. He was educated at Moscow and at the military engineering academy at St. Petersburg, which he left in 1843 with the grade of sub-lieutenant. Next year his father died, and he resigned his commission in order to devote himself to literature -- thus commencing a long struggle with ill-health and penury. In addition to the old Russian masters Gogol and Pushkin, Balzac and George Sand supplied him with literary ideals. He knew little of Dickens, but his first story is thoroughly Dickensian in character. The hero is a Russian "Tom Pinch", who entertains a pathetic, humble adoration for a fair young girl, a solitary waif like himself. Characteristically the Russian story ends in "tender gloom." The girl marries a middle-aged man of property; the hero dies of a broken heart, and his funeral is described in lamentable detail. The germ of all Dostoevsky`s imaginative work may be discovered here. The story was submitted in manuscript to the Russian critic, Bielinski, and excited his astonishment by its power over the emotions. It appeared in the course of 1846 in the Recueil de Saint-Pétersbourg, under the title of "Poor People." An English version, Poor Folk, with an introduction by George Moore, appeared in 1894. The successful author became a regular contributor of short tales to the Annals of the Country, a monthly periodical conducted by Kraevsky; but he was wretchedly paid, and his work, though revealing extraordinary power and intensity, commonly lacks both finish and proportion. Poverty and physical suffering robbed him of the joy of life and filled him with bitter thoughts and morbid imaginings. During 1847 he became an enthusiastic member of the revolutionary reunions of the political agitator, Petrachevski. Many of the students and younger members did little more than discuss the theories of Charles Fourier and other economists at these gatherings. Exaggerated reports were eventually carried to the police, and on the 23rd of April 1849 Dostoevsky and his brother, with thirty other suspected personages, were arrested. After a short examination by the secret police they were lodged in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Petersburg, in which confinement Feodor wrote his story A Little Hero. On the 22nd of December 1849 the accused were all condemned to death and conveyed in vans to a large scaffold in the Simonovsky Place. As the soldiers were preparing to carry out the sentence, the prisoners were informed that their penalty was commuted to exile in Siberia. The novelist`s sentence was four years in Siberia and enforced military service in the ranks for life. On Christmas Eve 1849 he commenced the long journey to Omsk, and remained in Siberia, "like a man buried alive, nailed down in his coffin", for four terrible years. His Siberian experiences are graphically narrated in a volume to which he gave the name of Recollections of a Dead-House (1858). It was known in an English translation as Buried Alive in Siberia (1881; another version, 1888). His release only subjected him to fresh indignities as a common soldier at Semipalatinsk; but in 1858, through the intercession of an old school fellow, General Todleben, he was made an under-officer; and in 1859, upon the accession of Alexander II, he was finally recalled from exile. In 1858 he had married a widow, Madame Isaiev, but she died at St. Peter