One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Rene Wellek, Philip Rahv, Murray Krieger, Irving Howe, Eliseo Vivas, D. H. Lawrence, Sigmund Freud, Dmitri Chizhevsky, V. V. Zenkovsky, Georg Lukacs, and Derek Traversi--all dealing with the biography and literary work of Dostoevsky. Designed for use by both literary critics and secondary and college teachers of English, this book would also be of value to undergraduate and graduate students of literature. The essays discuss Dostoevsky and parricide, the theme of the double in Dostoevsky, his religious and philosophical views, the "Grand Inquisitor," the politics of salvation, the two dimensions of reality in "The Brothers Karamazov," and the curse of saintliness in "The Idiot." A chronology of important dates in Dostoevsky's life, a brief set of biographical notes on the contributors to this collection, and a bibliography of works on Dostoevsky complete the volume. (LL)