Product Description

Dostoevsky was one of the greatest authors of the nineteenth century. His masterpieces Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov are held in high regard by literary critics. This fifth and final volume of Joseph Frank's justly celebrated biography renders with a rare intelligence and grace the last decade of the writer's life, a time that won him the universal approval toward which he always aspired. While describing the writer's idiosyncratic relationship to the Russian State, Frank also details Dostoevsky's continuing rivalries with Turgenev and Tolstoy. The writer's death in St Petersburg in January 1881 concludes this unparalleled literary biography, one truly worthy of Dostoevsky's genius and of the remarkable time and place in which he lived.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1045954 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 5
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Rene Girard, The Weekly Standard
The richest of Frank's monumental work.

About the Author
Joseph Frank is Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literature Emeritus at Stanford University. Previous volumes of Dostoevsky have received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, two Christian Gauss Awards, two James Russell Lowell Awards, a Los Angeles Book prize and other honours. In addition to the previous volumes of Dostoevsky, Frank is author of Through the Russian Prism: Essays on Literature and Culture.

Customer Reviews

A gripping tribute to an incredible man
A gripping conclusion to Frank's incredible achievement. Like the previous volumes, Mantle of the Prophet is meticulously researched and enthralling to read, thanks to Frank's flowing prose. An absolute must for any lover of Dostoevsky, this traces the fascinating last years of his life, and some of his greatest writing.

Incredible achievement
Since I first came across Frank's 5-volume Dostoevsky biography as a student nine years ago I have consistently returned to it and been increasingly impressed. To write a volume of such length and detail yet to remain fascinating, easy to read and entirely accessible is a tremendous achievement. Frank covers the history of 19th century Russia fluently and never veers off for too long from his subject to become dry. In this volume particularly he manages to show the increasing divergence between the cantankerously nationalist Dostoevsky and the incredible, prophetic writer of great sensitivity without once exaggerating Dostoevsky's tendencies in either direction. You don't need to be an obsessive Dostoevsky reader to access this volume, just someone interested, and it will repay your reading tremendously.

Buy!
Absolutely brilliant! The consumation of several years work. Buy the whole set!