Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11th, 1821, in Moscow, Russia. Dostoevsky read widely during his childhood, and his parents held discussions on literature. In 1836, Dostoevsky's parents sent him to the Saint Petersburg Military Engineering Technical University, to eventually enter the military service. In 1839, Dostoevsky's father mysteriously died (the cause of his death is unknown). Around the same time, Dostoevsky began to show signs of epilepsy, which would plague him for the rest of his life. In spite of his dislike for engineering, Dostoevsky place third in the final examination at the university. While still a student at the university, Dostoevsky published his first novel, Poor Folk, which became an instant success. An illustrious literary career was now open to him. Dostoevsky continued to write works of literature, but these early works were only small hills compared to the gigantic mountains of his later works.

In 1846, Dostoevsky joined the socialist Petrashevsky circle to discuss the abolition of serfdom in Russia, although he did not agree with socialism. Dostoevsky's participation soon led to his arrest by the Russian authorities, who sentenced him to death along with other criminals. His execution, however, turned out to be a mock execution (a form of psychological torture), and Dostoevsky was sent to exile in a Siberian labor camp, in terrible conditions. The intense suffering of this period left a lasting memory on Dostoevsky.

After returning from exile in 1854, Dostoevsky began writing again. Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground in 1864 and Crime and Punishment in 1866. In 1866, Dostoevsky encountered one of the most fortunate events in his life: he met the stenographer Anna Snitkina, who helped publish one of his novels. The two would eventually marry and enjoy a happy family life, despite the deaths of two of their four children. Dostoevsky then wrote The Idiot in 1868, Demons in 1872, and The Brothers Karamazov in 1880. In 1881, Dostoevsky died at fifty-nine. More than 40,000 people attended his funeral.

Dostoevsky's novels address questions of religion, free will, and morality during an age where the ever-advancing science and new philosophical ideas (from Nietzsche, for example) tried to upend Christianity. Such novels include The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground, and Crime and Punishment, which contain a philosophical and psychological profundity that influenced figures such as Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Einstein.