“Just recently I was feeling unwell and read House of the Dead. I had forgotten a good bit, read it over again and I do not know a better book in all our new literature, including Pushkin. It’s not the tone but the wonderful point of view–genuine, natural, and Christian. A splendid, instructive book. I enjoyed myself the whole day as I have not done for a long time. If you see Dostoevsky, tell him that I love him.”
–Tolstoy, quoted in Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, p. 561-2
