Dostoyevsky in Love

“She cried, and kissed my hands, but she loves another.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821–February 9, 1881) was twenty-seven when he was arrested for belonging to a literary society deemed dangerous by the tsarist regime and sentenced to death. His sentence was repealed at the last moment, prompting him to pen an ecstatic letter about the meaning of life that evening. But he was not set free — instead, he served four years in a hard labor camp in Siberia.

Upon his release, the thirty-thre...