Russian author Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born October 30, 1821 in the Hospital for the Poor, the second of seven children.
In 1821 Dostoevsky went off to boarding school in Moscow and after the death of his mother in 1837, attended preparatory school in St. Petersburg. In 1838, he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Academy of Military Engineers from which he graduated as lieutenant in 1843, taking a job in the military department.
Such work gave Fyodor no satisfaction, and it was during his employment with the military department that he came to a profound realization; he wanted to write.
He began in 1843 doing translations and during this period began his first novel, Poor Folk, which was published in 1846. By the time of his arrest (Fyodor was associated with utopian socialist M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky, it was this association that found him in prison) in 1849, Dostoevsky had published a number of other novels.
By 1857, circumstance for Dostoevsky were taking a turn for the better. On February sixth of that year, he married Maria Dmitrievna Isaeva and was returned his rights of a nobleman shortly hereafter. The family enjoyed a relative prosperity for the next seven years, however, this prosperity found an end. The death of both his brother and wife in 1864 left Fyodor in dire financial straits due to debts left him by his brother. While working against a deadline on a contract and falling far behind,