Selected Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky — The Gambler (a Classic Novel) and Stories of the 60s

Description

About “The Gambler”

The novel first appeared in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Collected Works brought out by F. Stellovsky in 1866 (and simultaneously as a separate book).

The circumstances in which this novel was written were quite extraordinary. The conditions set by the book publisher Stellovsky were that in the course of one month Dostoyevsky had to produce a novel of not less than ten signatures for his Collected Works. If Dostoyevsky did not submit the novel in time he would cede his rights to the publisher for all his previous and future work for a term of nine years. On the advice of friends, Dostoyevsky decided to hire a stenographer: this was twenty-year-old Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina whom he married four months later. On October 4, 1866, he put aside his Crime and Punishment and began dictating The Gambler. Twenty-six days later, he handed in the ten stipulated signatures to Stellovsky.

In one of his letters in 1863 Dostoyevsky wrote: “The plot of the novel is as follows: the hero is a type of Russian abroad… He is a gambler, and not a simple gambler, just as Pushkin’s miserly knight is not a simple miser. (I am by no means comparing myself to Pushkin. I just want to make it clear.) He is a poet in his own way, but he himself is ashamed of this poetry, for he deeply feels its unworthiness, albeit this craving for risk does ennoble him in his own eyes. The whole story is about his gambling at roulette in various European gaming houses.”

Both motifs in this novel—the devouring passion for gambling and the unrequited love—are autobiographical. Dostoyevsky was a passionate gambler. At the German spas where he first encountered the world of roulette, he hoped to win enough to possess a capital and become independent. His big wins were naturally followed by disastrous losses. And so, obviously, none but Dostoyevsky with his intimate knowledge of the gambler’s psychology could have written this marvellous novel.

The relationship between Alexei Ivanich and Paulina in the novel in many respects describes the love affair of Dostoyevsky and Appolinaria Suslova, an authoress.