ABSTRACT

The demarcation of the novel's aesthetic and social boundaries entailed the redefinition of the notions of 'subject' and 'real' within a modified concept of 'historicity'. Gissing appreciated in Dostoevskii the tragic power of his work, which in his view could not be found in British novelists. Dostoevskii the Nihilist, the philosopher, the prophet, the epileptic, and so on, prevailed for a long time over Dostoevskii the artist, with no little consequences for the manner of his reception in Britain and in the rest of Europe. The quantity of regular reviews of Russian fictional and non-fictional works in British journals and magazines, at least since the Crimean War, suggests that we are dealing with the omission of one particular writer rather than with a lack of interest in Russia and Russian literature. Around the years when Vizetelly embarked upon his project to publish Dostoevskii's novels, a change in the attitude towards the Russian Empire was taking place.