How were Russian literary classics published in their time?

Question by Chris: How were 19th century Russian literary classics published in their time?
Were they released as a full novel book, like books are today? How would a 19th century Russian have accessed a work by Dostoyevski or Tolstoy at the time of their publication? Would they have waked into a bookstore and found copies sitting there?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Tequila
Interesting question. Dostoevsky’s longest serialized novel was “The Brothers Karamazov”, published in 16 parts in “The Russian Herald” from January 1879 to November 1880. The author’s “… need for ongoing research … as well as his personal problems forced him no less than eleven times to miss the month’s installment of a ‘book’ (kniga) and several times to change his plans for the novel as it unfolded.”
http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/07/087.shtml
Interestingly, his wife, Anna, managed to get him out of debt the year prior to his death by having his serialized novels published in separate volumes.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazov/resources/
Some of Dostoyevsky’s writings were published as complete works. The background at this link may be of interest to you.

Certain works by Tolstoy were serialized, some over periods of several years. http://books.google.com/books?id=H8A9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=war+and+peace+appeared+first+in+serial+form&source=bl&ots=kr0ilT2T-B&sig=XRw345dVINUPR_4gIcsIlH41Zls&hl=en&ei=DieHSvLLHNfAsgaTrJmZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
“Anna Karenina” was serialized from 1873 to 1877 in “The Russian Messenger” periodical, but the conclusion never appeared due to disagreements with the editor. Thus, the entire work was only made known when it appeared as a complete novel.
“War and Peace” was also originally a serialized work called: “The Year 1805”. It took a number of years to put out all the installments. : ) http://books.google.com/books?id=pxxFnzJtlzIC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=tolstoy:+the+year+1805&source=bl&ots=In4coDa8cD&sig=qyDpyNF_RB0r4cgZvN5OSN-vngw&hl=en&ei=RyiHSqunDo6OnAOG2NXtBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Apparently, readers in Russia were likely to encounter installments of such writers in periodicals over a long period of time. In some cases, books were made available to those who could afford them. In other instances, a work began as a serial, but later made its appearance as a complete novel.

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