Dostoevski's consuming ambition for literary fame is well indicated in
his first book. "If anything be well written, Varinka, it is
literature. I learned this the day before yesterday. What a wonderful
thing literature is, which, consisting but of printed words, is able
to invigorate, to instruct, the hearts of men!"

So many writers have made false starts in literature that Dostoevski's
instinct for the right path at the very outset is something notable.
His entire literary career was to be spent in portraying the despised
and rejected. Never has a great author's first book more clearly
revealed the peculiar qualities of his mind and heart.

But although he struck the right path, it was a long time before he
found again the right vein. He followed up his first success with a
row of failures, whose cold reception by the public nearly broke his
heart. He was extremely busy, extremely productive, and extremely
careless, as is shown by the fact that during the short period from
1846 to 1849, he launched thirteen original publications, not a single
one of which added anything to his fame. It was not until after the
cruel years of Siberia that the great books began to appear.

Nor did they appear at once. In 1859 he published "The Uncle's Dream,"
a society novel, showing both in its humour and in its ruthless satire
the influence of Gogol. This is an exceedingly entertaining book, and,
a strange thing in Dostoevski, it is, in many places, hilariously
funny. The satire is so enormously exaggerated that it completely
overshoots the mark, but perhaps this very exaggeration adds to the
reader's merriment. The conversation in this story is often brilliant,
full of unexpected quips and retorts delivered in a manner far more
French than Russian. The intention of the author seems to have been to