In June 1862, Dostoevsky left Petersburg on his first excursion to Western Europe. Ostensibly making the trip to consult Western specialists about his epilepsy, he also wished to see firsthand the source of the Western ideas he believed were corrupting Russia. Over the course of his journey he visited a number of major cities, including Berlin, Paris, London, Florence, Milan, and Vienna. He recorded his impressions in Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, which were first published in the February 1863 issue of Vremya (Time), the periodical of which he was the editor.

In June 1862, Dostoevsky left Petersburg on his first excursion to Western Europe. Ostensibly making the trip to consult Western specialists about his epilepsy, he also wished to see first-hand the source of the Western ideas he believed were corrupting Russia. Over the course of his journey he visited a number of major cities, including Berlin, Paris, London, Florence, Milan and Vienna.His record of the trip, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions - first published in the February 1863 issue of Vremya, the periodical he edited - is the chrysalis out of which many elements of his later masterpieces developed.

The book description for the previously published "Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865" is not yet available.

Before leaving home he had engaged to send back dispatches to La Stampa; after appearing there, his "letters from India" were collected and issued posthumously as Verso la cuna del mondo (1917), now published in English for the first time. The extent of Gozzano's travels - to Ceylon, Goa, Agra, Jaipur - makes one wonder how the writer was able to visit all or even most of the places he so vividly describes.

Reconsidering Dostoevsky's legacy 200 years after his birth, this collection addresses how and why his novels contribute so much to what we think of as the modern condition.