Excerpt from The Masterpieces and the History of Literature, Vol. 10 of 10: Analysis, Criticism, Character and Incident The novel, now regarded as the chief form of Russian literature, was first cultivated by Zagoskin and Lazhechnikofi' under the Scott-like influence of Karamsin. It has since reached its height of unforgiving and terrible realism in the minutely psychological and morbid stories of Dostoievski, whose Crime and Punishment is his masterpiece, and Count Lyof Tolstoi, whose greatest works are War and Peace, a tale of the Napoleonic War, and Anna Karenina, an impressive picture of erring womanhood. His Kreutzer Sonata was a sensational attack on marriage. In other works he has advocated a return to primitive Christianity and an extreme literal observance of the precepts of Jesus. Nihilism has had its most famous novelist in Stepniak, who lived in exile in England until his death in 1896. Two young Russian women, Marie Bashkirtsetf and Sonya Kovalevsky, have attracted attention by their startling revelations of an inner soul life which mirrors the extreme yearnings and woes of modern womanhood. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.