11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881​

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Dostoyevsky was born and raised on the grounds of the Mariinsky hospital in Moscow, Russia. At an early age he was introduced to English, French, German and Russian literature, as well as to fairy tales and legends. His mother's sudden death devastated him and, around the same time, he left private school for a military academy. After his graduation he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a liberal lifestyle. He soon began translating books to earn extra money. Around the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, through which he entered into the literary mainstream. In 1849 he was arrested for his involvement with the Petrashevsky Circle, a progressive discussion group. He and other members were condemned to death for their participation in this group, but the penalty proved to be a mock execution at the last moment, and Dostoyevsky's sentence was commuted to four years of imprisonment in Siberia. After his release, he was forced to serve as a soldier but was discharged from the military due to ill health and allowed to continue with his writing.​