How Many Epistolary Novels Did Dostoevsky Write?

Dostoevsky’s literary debut was his epistolary novel “Poor People.” Epistolary genres and subgenres are vital in many of the writer’s works. It can definitely be argued that Dostoevsky’s literary talent initially manifested itself in his letters to his brother Mikhail in 1838. Despite the ironic criticism of the genre, the author without any modesty called his letters “masterpieces of belles lettres.” This borrowing from the French chefs-d’euvre de la lettristique characterizes the young writer’s degree of ambition. The letters of Dostoevsky and his correspondents constitute a significant part of his literary heritage. They carry a huge aesthetic and artistic potential, which is underestimated in many ways. Critics and readers do not see the author as a poet and an artist, while Dostoevsky is a genius in any genre: whether novels, essays, feuilletons, or letters. The list of Dostoevsky’s correspondents included hundreds of addressees: extended family and relatives, friends and acquaintances, readers and fans, writers, critics and publishers, creditors and loan sharks, students and students of Higher women’s courses. Many of the writer’s interlocutors were prominent personas in Russia. Young women and divorced ladies wrote to him, asking for advice and guidance, and sometimes expecting mentoring in literary verse and prose work. The writer awakened in them the gift of words, imagination, and critical judgment. His readers comprised many who were congenial to the author. There are twelve works in Dostoevsky’s corpus of texts that he called novels, two of them epistolary — “Poor People” and “A Novel in Nine Letters.” There are more of them, if we turn to the writer’s epistolary legacy. Dostoevsky and his correspondents wrote letters, and they often served as the foundation of epistolary novels. The epistolary genre multiplies the collection of Dostoevsky’s novels, expands and enriches the creative legacy of the genius.