Poor Folk by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky Fiction Classics

<p><strong>Makar Dievushkin Alexievitch is a copy writer barely squeaking by; Barbara Dobroselova Alexievna works as a seamstress and both face the sort of everyday humiliation society puts upon the poor. </strong>These are people respected by no one not even by themselves. These are folks too poor in their circumstances to marry; the love between them is a chaste and proper thing a love that brings some readers to tears. But it isn't maudlin either; Fyodor Dostoevsky has something profound to say about these people and this circumstance. And he says it very well. When the book was first published a leading Russian literary critic of the day -- Belinsky -- prophesied that Dostoevsky would become a literary giant. It isn't hard to see how he came to that conclusion and in hindsight he was surely was correct.</p><p>Written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845 Dostoyevsky was in financial difficulty because of his extravagant living and his developing gambling addiction; although he had produced some translations of foreign novels they had little success and he decided to write a novel of his own to try to raise funds.</p>