liza knapp (éd.), Dostoevsky's "The Idiot": A Critical Companion, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1998.
olga meerson, Dostoevsky's Taboos, Studies of the Harriman Institute, Dresden University Press, Dresden-Munich, 1998. study of the meta-psychology of tabooing and the meanings of the unsaid in Dostoevsky.
robin feuer miller, Dostoevsky and "The Idiot": Author, Narrator, and Reader, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981.
Konstantin mochulsky, Dostoevsky, His Life and Work, tr. Michael A. Minihan, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967. The work of a distinguished émigré scholar, first published in 1947 and still the best critical biography of Dostoevsky.
Harriet murav, Holy Foolishness: Dostoevsky's Novels and the Poetics of Cultural Critique, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1992. george pattison and diane OENNING Thompson, Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001.
edward wasiolek, Dostoevsky: The Notebooks for "The Idiot", tr. Katherine Strelsky, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1967. Dostoevsky's notebooks and drafts in preparation for writing The Idiot.
CHRONOLOGY
DATE
AUTHOR'S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1821
Born in Moscow.
1823-31
Pushkin: Evgeny Onegin.
1825
1830
Stendhaclass="underline" Le Rouge et le Noir.
1833-7
At school in Moscow.
1834
Family purchases estate of Darovoe.
Pushkin: The Queen of Spades.
1835
Balzac: Le Père Goriot.
1836
Gogoclass="underline" The Government Inspector.
l837
Death of mother.
Enters St Petersburg Academy
of Military Engineering.
Dickens: Pickwick Papers. Death of Pushkin in duel.
1839
Death of father, assumed murdered by serfs.
Stendhaclass="underline" La Chartreuse de Parme.
1840
Lermontov: A Hero of Our Time.
1841
Death of Lermontov in duel.
1842
Gogoclass="underline" Dead Souls and The Overcoat.
1844
Graduates, but resigns commission in order to pursue literary career.
1845
Completes Poor Folk - acclaimed by the critic Belinsky.
1846
Publication of Poor Folk and The Double.
1847
Breaks with Belinsky. Joins Petrashevsky circle. "The Landlady", "A Novel in Nine Letters", "A Petersburg Chronicle".
Herzen: Who is to Blame? Herzen leaves Russia. Goncharov: An Ordinary Story.
1848
"A Faint Heart" and "White
Nights".
Death of Belinsky. Thackeray: Vanity Fair.
1849
Netochka Nezvanova. Arrested and imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress. Mock execution. Sentenced to hard labour and Siberian exile.
DATE
AUTHOR'S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1850
Arrives at Omsk penal colony.
Turgenev: A Month in the Country. Herzen: From the Other Shore. Dickens: David Copperfield.
1851
1852
Tolstoy: Childhood. Turgenev: A Sportsman's Notebook. Death of Gogol.
1853-6
1854
Posted to Semipalatinsk.
1855
1856
Turgenev: Rudin.
1857
Marries Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva.
Flaubert: Madame Bovary. Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du mal.
1859
The Friend of the Family. Returns to St Petersburg.
Turgenev: A Nest of Gentlefolk. Goncharov: Oblomov. Tolstoy: Family Happiness. Darwin: The Origin of Species.
1860
Starts publication of House of the Dead.
Turgenev: On the Eve.
George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss.
Birth of Chekhov.
1861
Time commences publication. The Insulted and Injured.
Dickens: Great Expectations.
1862
Travels in Europe. Affair with Polina Suslova.
Turgenev: Fathers and Children. Hugo: Les Misérables. Chernyshevsky arrested.
1863
Further travel abroad. Time closed. Winter Notes on Summer Impressions.
Tolstoy: The Cossacks. Chernyshevsky: What is to be . Done?
1864
Launch of The Epoch. Death of wife and brother. Notes from Underground.
1865
The Epoch closes. Severe financial difficulties.
Dickens: Our Mutual Friend.
1865-9
Tolstoy: War and Peace.
1866
(Mme and Punishment. The Gambler.
1867
Marries Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina. Flees abroad to escape creditors.
Turgenev: Smoke.
1868
The Idiot. Birth and death of daughter, Sonya. Visits Switzerland and Italy.
1869
Birth of daughter Liubov.
Flaubert: L'Education sentimentale.
DATE
AUTHOR'S LIFE
LITERARY CONTEXT
1870
The Eternal Husband.
Death of Dickens and Herzen.
1871
Returns to St Petersburg. ' Birth of son, Fyodor.
1871-
Demons (The Devils/The Possessed).
1872
Summer in Staraia Russa -becomes normal summer residence. Becomes editor of The Citizen.
Marx's Das Kapital published
in Russia.
George Eliot: Middlemarch.
1873
Starts Diary of a Writer.
1874
Resigns from The Citizen. Seeks treatment for emphysema in Bad Ems.