Fyodor Dostoyevsky had continued to work on his Diaries in early 1876.

The book's main theme was, like The Adolescent, child abuse by adults.

This essay collection has sold more than twice as many as any of his previous books.

Dostoyevsky has received more letters from readers than at any time before.

People of different ages and occupations visit him, now a theology student who has religious doubts, now an agnostic teacher.

Thanks to Anna's brother, the family finally buys a dacha in Staraya Russa.

In the summer of 1876, Dostoyevsky had again begun suffering from breathlessness.

He visited Ems for a third time, was prescribed a similar remedy as before and was told that he might live for another fifteen years if he could find a healthy climate.

When Dostoyevsky returned to Russia, Tsar Alexander II had ordered him to visit his palace and to present him his Diaries.

He had also asked him to educate his sons, Sergey and Paul.

This visit led to the increase of his circle of acquaintances.

He has been a frequent guest in several salons in St. Petersburg and met with many famous people, including Princess Sofya Tolstaya, the poet Yakov Polonsky, the politician Sergei Witte, the journalist Alexey Suvorin, the musician Anton Rubinstein and artist Ilya Repin.

Dostoyevsky's health had begun to deteriorate further, and in March 1877 he had four epileptic seizures.

Instead of going back to Ems he decided to visit Maly Prikol, a manor near Kursk.

On the way back to St. Petersburg to finalize his Diaries, Dostoyevsky had visited Darovoye, the scene of many childhood memories; at the same time, Anna and her children made a pilgrimage to Kiev.

In December, he attended Nikolay Nekrasov's funeral and gave a speech, and had been appointed an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences around that time.

In early 1878, he had listened to a speech about the "Man of God" delivered by Vladimir Solovyov, which had set him thinking about his next novel.

In February 1879, he had received an honorary certificate from the academy and in the spring had been invited to participate in an international congress about copyright in Paris, headed by Victor Hugo.

He declined the invitation after his son Alyosha's death on May 16, after an epileptic seizure that had lasted for two hours.

The family had later moved to an apartment on Yamskaya Street, where Dostoyevsky had written his first works.

Around this time, he had been elected to the board of directors of the Slavic Benevolent Society in St. Petersburg, and that summer had been elected to the honorary committee of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, which includes Victor Hugo, Ivan Turgenev, Paul Heyse, Alfred Tennyson, Anthony Trollope, Henry Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Leo Tolstoy.

Dostoyevsky had made his fourth and final visit to Ems in early August 1879 and had been diagnosed as having pulmonary emphysema in an early stage.

The doctor believes that it is not possible to effect a cure, but said that the disease can be managed with a high likelihood of success.