1. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 when he was 25 years old.

2. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov.

3. Dostoevsky’s oeuvre consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories and numerous other works.

4. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature.

5. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.

6. Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors.

7. His mother died in 1837 when he was 15 years old, and around the same time, he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute.

8. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money.

9. In the mid-1840s, he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into St. Petersburg’s literary circles.

10. Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment.

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