Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "The Gambler" is about a young teacher working for a once-rich Russian general. The novella, which was in many respects inspired by Dostoevsky's own addiction to roulette, illustrates this behavior: Dostoevsky finished the book in 1866 under pressure to finish it before he had to pay off gambling debts. The Gambler dealt with gambling, a topic that Fyodor Dostoevsky was familiar with. In 1863, Fyodor Dostoevsky played a hand of cards at a Wiesbaden casino. He played frequently at Baden-Baden, Homburg, and Saxon-Les-Bains from that point on until 1871, when his fervor for gambling petered out. Frequently, he would start out winning a modest sum of money and end up losing much more. Fyodor Dostoevsky and F. T. Stellovsky then entered into a risky contract whereby Stellovsky would acquire the right to publish Dostoevsky's works for nine years, until 1 November 1875, without paying the author any money. This clause would apply if Dostoevsky failed to deliver a novel with 12 or more signatures by 1 November 1866. He jotted down some of his story's details before dictating them to one of Russia's earliest stenographers and his future bride, young Anna Grigorevna, who carefully wrote them out for him.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was born on November 11, 1821, and died on February 9, 1881, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. His name is sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky. Dostoevsky's literary works connect with a range of philosophical and religious subjects as they investigate the human condition amid the turbulent political, social, and spiritual environments of 19th-century Russia. His best-known works include The Brothers Karamazov (1872), Demons (1872), The Idiot (1869), and Crime and Punishment (1866). (1880). Notes from Underground, a novella he wrote in 1864, is regarded as one of the earliest examples of existentialist writing. Dostoyevsky, who was born in Moscow in 1821, first encountered literature as a young child through Russian and foreign authors' publications as well as fairy tales and legends. When he was 15 years old, his mother passed away. At about the same time, he quit school to enroll at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After receiving his degree, he worked as an engineer and temporarily lived a high life, translating books for additional cash. His debut book, Poor Folk, published in the middle of the 1840s, helped him win acceptance into Saint Petersburg's literary community.
