In the early months of 1922, M. André Gide delivered before M. Jacques Copeau’s School of Dramatic Art at the _Vieux-Colombier_ a series of six addresses on DOSTOEVSKY, first published from shorthand notes--with but slender emendation, lest the style should lose in spontaneity--in the _Revue Hebdomâdaire_, Nos. 2-8, 1923, then later in the same year in book form, together with selected essays. These addresses form the basis of the present translation from which two short chapters, _Les Frères Karamazov_ and an _Allocution lue au Vieux-Colombier pour la Célébration du Centenaire de Dostoïevsky_, have been omitted by desire of the Author, who adapted his original preface specially for this English edition. By courtesy of Messrs. William Heinemann, we are permitted to quote extensively from Mrs. Constance Garnett’s translations of _Dostoevsky’s Novels_ (12 vols., 1912-1920). We have utilized as far as possible Miss Ethel Colburn Mayne’s _Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends_ (Messrs. Chatto and Windus, 1917): elsewhere we have cited J. W. Bienstock’s _Correspondance et Voyage à l’Étranger_ (Paris, 1908). Quotations are further made from Bienstock and Nau’s version of the _Journal_ (Paris, 1904), and from _Th. M. Dostoevsky: eine biographische Studie_, by N. Hoffmann (Berlin, 1899). CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTORY NOTE v TRANSLATOR’S NOTE ix AUTHOR’S PREFACE 1 DOSTOEVSKY IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE (1908) 8 ADDRESSES ON DOSTOEVSKY (1922) I 45 II 76 III 99 IV 118 V 144 VI 170 APPENDIX 199 AUTHOR’S PREFACE Tolstoy in his immensity still overshadows our horizon; but as a traveller in a land of mountains sees, with each receding step, appear above the nearest peak one loftier yet, screened hitherto by the surrounding heights, some eager spirits herald perchance the rise of Dostoevsky behind Tolstoy’s giant figure. This cloud-capped summit is the secret heart of the chain and source of many a generous stream in whose waters the Europe of to-day may slake her strange new thirsts. Dostoevsky, not Tolstoy, merits rank beside Ibsen and Nietzsche: great as they, mayhap the mightiest of the three.