The House of the Dead (novel)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The House of the Dead (Russian: Записки из Мёртвого дома) is a novel published in 1862 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. The novel has also been published under the titles Memoirs from the House of The Dead and Notes from the Dead House.
The book is a loosely-knit collection of facts and events connected to life in a Siberian prison, organised by "theme" rather than as a continuous story. Dostoevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a camp following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts.
In 1927 – 1928, Leoš Janáček wrote an operatic version of the novel, with the title From the House of the Dead. It was his last opera.
