Notes from the House of the Dead

<DIV><I>Master translation of a neglected Russian classic into English</I><br><br>Long before Solzhenitsyn's <I>Gulag Archipelago</I> came Dostoevsky's <I>Notes from the House of the Dead</I> a compelling account of the horrific conditions in Siberian labor camps. First published in 1861 this novel based on Dostoevsky's own experience as a political prisoner is a forerunner of his famous novels <I>Crime and Punishment</I> and <I>The Brothers Karamazov</I>.<br><br>The characters and situations that Dostoevsky encountered in prison were so violent and extraordinary that they changed his psyche profoundly. Through that experience he later said he was resurrected into a new spiritual condition -- one in which he would create some of the greatest novels ever written.<br><br>Including an illuminating introduction by James Scanlan on Dostoevsky's prison years this totally new translation by Boris Jakim captures Dostoevsky's semi-autobiographical narrative -- at times coarse at times intensely emotional at times philosophical -- in rich American English.</DIV>