A Writer's Diary

A Writer's Diary

<DIV><DIV>The essential entries from Dostoevsky's complete <I>Diary</I>, called his boldest experiment in literary form, are now available in this abridged edition; it is a uniquely encyclopedic forum of fictional and nonfictional genres. <I>A Writer's Diary</I> began as a column in a literary journal, but by 1876 Dostoevsky was able to bring it out as a complete monthly publication with himself as an editor, publisher, and sole contributor, suspending work on <I>The Brothers Karamazov</I> to do so.</DIV><DIV> </DIV><DIV>The <I>Diary</I>'s radical format was matched by the extreme range of its contents. In a single frame it incorporated an astonishing variety of material: short stories; humorous sketches; reports on sensational crimes; historical predictions; portraits of famous people; autobiographical pieces; and plans for stories, some of which were never written while others appeared later in the <I>Diary</I> itself. A range of authorial and narrative voices and stances and an elaborate scheme of allusions and cross-references preserve and present Dostoevsky's conception of his work as a literary whole.</DIV><DIV> </DIV><DIV>Selected from the two-volume set, this abridged edition of <I>A Writer's Diary</I> appears in a single paperback volume, along with a new condensed introduction by editor Gary Saul Morson.</DIV></DIV>