If you are a reader of Russian Literature, or simply a lover of encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference works, "Handbook of Russian Literature" is something you might want in your library. The "Handbook" has nearly one thousand entries, large and small, providing comprehensive coverage, in a single volume, of every aspect of Russian literature during the past ten centuries. A large format book with small print and double columns on each page, the "Handbook" contains entries written by over one hundred leading scholars and ably edited by Victor Terras.

The entries range from one or two lines to several thousand words over several pages. There are biographical entries of Russian authors, little and well known, as well as entries on various genres, historical periods, literary movements, literary journals and periodicals, and critical theories. Each entry includes a bibliography and, in addition, there is a useful general bibliography, broken out by historical periods, at the end of the book. The "Handbook" is, in other words, a perfect reference and entrée into the world of Russian literature. I find myself dipping into this book often, at random, and never fail to learn something new and interesting. I also use it as a valuable source of background reading when I sit down to read a Russian author.

The only shortcomings of the "Handbook" are that its print is very small (allowing the book, of course, to cram an immense amount of information in less than 600 pages) and that it devotes little coverage to authors of roughly the last quarter of the twentieth century, including some of the so-called "dissident" authors who wrote in the years immediately preceding publication (a shortcoming, however, that is excusable because most of the research for the "Handbook" was done in the early 1980s and the book was published in 1985). Also, while the bibliographies are useful for the casual reader, serious research requires reference to more recent sources.

This is a great book for anybody who is studying or likes reading Russian Literature. It has an informative article on practically every Russian writer that you'll need to know about, although a few of the more contemporary ones are omitted.

In addition to providing a thorough biographical sketch for each author, it also mentions the major works of each author and gives critical opinions and brief analyses of many of the works. The major translations available are listed at the end of each entry.

I like reading the sketch on an author before I begin reading his or her work. It provides a great introduction.

Terras' Reading Dostoevsky consists of seven essays dealing with Dostoevsky's work and an appendix about Dostoevsky in English translation. The first essay is about Dostoevsky's work prior to his 1849 arrest for sedition; this is followed by a very strong essay on psychology in Dostoevsky's work which pays particular (but by no means exclusive) attention to his work in the early-to-mid 1860s, and by one essay each on Dostoevsky's five long novels (Crime and Punishment, The Possessed/Demons/Devils, The Idiot, A Raw Youth/The Adolescent/An Accidental Family, and The Brothers Karamazov) written between 1866 and 1880.

All of the essays are fairly well-written and are accessible to anyone who has casually read the long novels (on the other hand, I suppose that if you haven't read the long novels, with the possible exception of A Raw Youth, you'll probably be somewhat lost whenever something you haven't read comes up). Terras refrains from putting forth any especially daring theses, instead taking us through each work in a thorugh but very concise fashion and pointing out a number of subtleties that would tend to escape the casual reader. Each of the essays definitely enriched my understanding of Dostoevsky. However, I have to admit I expected a bit more than what Terras offered. Not including the appendix, bibliography, and index, the book only comes to about 140 pages, which is hardly enough to do justice to Dostoevsky; Terras uses each of those pages well, but when I came to the end I felt like there should still be more. Perhaps the editorial reviews overpraise the book somewhat--in particular, contrary to some of the reviews, Reading Dostoevsky neglects some of Dostoevsky's more noted works: Notes From Underground gets only a couple of pages' worth of attention, and I'm not sure The Gambler is even mentioned.

That said, I definitely enjoyed Terras' book, and I certainly came away from it with a deeper understanding of Dostoevsky's long novels.

Very nicely done by Terras once again. A fresh look at most of Dostoevsky's material.