The Gambler | Dostoevsky

Whoever reads the novel The Gambler by Dostoevsky notices that it carries to some extent the marks of autobiography, and we do not mean that the writer depicted in the novel scenes from his private life, nor do we mean that some circumstances of this life were reflected in the novel. Dostoevsky was an emotionally passionate person, and gambling in roulette was one of the things he loved most and for a long time. He knew the deepest secrets of this game not only technically, but he personally experienced the rise and fall, the turns of fate, and the succession of hope and despair. Sometimes he would win large sums, but in the gambling discipline, he would lose them all to the last penny, so that he would not have anything left to pay for tea and candles at the hotel.