In the January issue of New Criterion, our bookish doctor considers the ruminations of famous condemned men on life, death, and freedom.

More than one writer has been condemned to death and lived to tell the tale, most famously, perhaps, Dostoevsky. He was before the firing squad, his eyes blindfolded, when he learned of his reprieve. Apparently, the tsar, Nicholas I, had never intended to have him shot: he wanted, first, to give all potential rebels and dissenters a fright, and, second, to appear generously merciful.