The Gambler

The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1866.


Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of realistic philosophical and religious themes. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.
Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoyevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends. In 1837 when he was 15, he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money.
Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of 'Tsarist Russia', he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp.