Dostoevsky's life was marked by brilliance and brutality. Sentenced to death as a young revolutionary, he survived mock execution and Siberian exile to live through a time of seismic change in Russia, eventually being accepted into the Tsar's inner circle. Somehow, amidst all this, he found time to write short stories, journalism, and novels such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov, works now recognized as among the finest...