Joseph Frank hat den fünften Band seiner monumentalen Biographie beendet. Scott McLemee ist in „The Chronicle of Higher Education“ voll des Lobs:

Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881 brings to its conclusion a project that has occupied Mr. Frank for nearly half a century. Beginning with the first volume, in 1976, reviewers have habitually used the words „authoritative“ and „definitive“ to describe his reconstruction of the novelist’s turbulent life, which he situates in the context of 19th-century Russian and European intellectual history. With the final installment now complete, the expression „masterpiece“ seems more or less inevitable.