The House of the Dead is a novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky and first published in 1861.It is a semi-autobiographical novel inspired by the years Dostoevsky spent condemned in Siberia."Our prison stood at the edge of the fortress grounds, close to the fortress wall. One would sometimes, through a chink in the fence, take a peep into God’s world to try and see something; but one could see only a strip of the sky and the high earthen wall overgrown with coarse weeds, and on the wall sentinels pacing up and down day and night."This edition of the book The House of the Dead is based on the translation by Constance Garnett.