I spat upon the book, tore it to pieces, stamped upon it, and wound up by throwing it out of the window

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was an avid reader, devouring novels, poetry and plays from a young age. Not only did he admire Russian authors like Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol, but he also loved Western writers such as William Shakespeare, William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens. Literary sources formed the basis of several of Tchaikovsky's works, most notably the Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet (1870), inspired by Shakespeare's play, and the opera Eugene Onegin (1878), based on a verse novel by Pushkin. 

Below are several excerpts from letters, shown in chronological order, in which Tchaikovsky talks about his literary preferences. In the first letter, he discusses Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky after reading the first chapters of his magnum opus The Brothers Karamazov (1880), shortly after the novel was being serialised. While not a fan of the author, Tchaikovsky describes how he was moved to tears by one of the novel's scenes. It was only when he had read more of the book, however, that he felt it became "unbearable": "That's how it always is: one can put up with Dostoyevsky only during the first part of his novels. What comes afterwards is sheer chaos". He reportedly finished the novel but ultimately found it heavy and depressing.

[To Nadezhda von Meck, his patroness]

16/28 February–17 February/1 March 1879

..... Besides, for two days now I have been under a strong impression from Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. Two days ago in the evening I read the first chapters of this tale in your issue of the Russian Messenger. In it, as is always the case with Dostoyevsky, there feature prominently various strange madcaps, various morbidly nervous characters who remind one more of beings from the realm of febrile delirium and nightmare, than of real people. As is always the case with him, in this tale, too, there is something painful, depressing, and forlorn, but, as always, there are also the occasional episodes almost of genius — unfathomable revelations of artistic analysis. There is one scene there which affected and shook me so powerfully that I burst into tears and had a fit of hysterics: it is where the elderly monk Zosima receives various sufferers who have come to him hoping to be healed. Amongst them is a woman who has walked over 300 miles to seek consolation from him. All her children had died one by one. After burying the youngest she had lost the strength to struggle against her grief, so she left her house and husband and started wandering through the countryside. The simplicity with which she describes her irreparable despair, the staggering force of the simple words which convey her endless grief at the fact that she will never, never, never see and hear that child again, and especially when she says: I wouldn't even go up to him, I wouldn't say a word; I'd just hide myself in a corner if only I could just look at him for a few seconds — all this tugged so painfully at my heartstrings and still does. Yes, my friend! It is better to have to die oneself every day for a thousand years than to lose those whom one loves and to seek consolation in the hypothetical idea that we shall meet again in the other world! Will we meet again? Happy are those who manage not to have doubts about this.

In the next letter, written to his younger brother Modest, Tchaikovsky discusses his dislike of French author Victor Hugo, known for Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831). While Tchaikovsky acknowledged Hugo's talent, he found his prose so overwrought and contrived that he could no longer bear to read him. "In literature I only love writers who are wholly truthful," he once said, "such as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Gogol, Dickens, Thackeray, and only these writers or those of their ilk are important to me." Hugo was clearly not one of them, and neither was Émile Zola, another French author whom Tchaikovsky disliked nearly as much as Hugo. 

Simaki, July 18th (30th), 1880

.... Thanks (in an ironical sense) for your suggestion that I should read L’homme qui rit. Do you not know the story of my relations to Victor Hugo? Anyhow, I will tell you what came of them. I took up Les travailleurs de la Mer; I read, and read, and grew more and more irritated by his grimaces and buffoonery. Finally, after a whole series of short, unmeaning phrases, consisting of exclamations, antitheses, and asterisks, I lost my temper, spat upon the book, tore it to pieces, stamped upon it, and wound up by throwing it out of the window. From that moment I cannot bear the mention of Victor Hugo! Believe me, your Zola is just such another mountebank, but more modern in spirit. I do not dislike him quite so much as Hugo, but very nearly. He disgusts me, as a girl would disgust me who pretended to be simple and natural, while all the time she was essentially a flirt and coquette.

In proportion as I like modern French music, their literature and journalism seem to me revolting.

British authors were among Tchaikovsky's favourites, especially Charles Dickens. As the composer wanted to read their work in the original language, he learned English; his English proficiency, however, never went beyond a basic level despite his efforts to improve it. (There were two foreign languages Tchaikovsky was fluent in, i.e. French and German.)

[To Nadezhda von Meck] 

Simaki, July 24th (August 5th), 1880.

Have I told you, dear friend, that I am studying English? Here I work very regularly, and with good results. I hope in six months I shall be able to read English easily. That is my sole aim; I know that at my age it is impossible to speak it well. But to read Shakespeare, Dickens, and Thackeray in the original would be the consolation of my old age.

In the spring of 1882, Tchaikovsky finished one of Dickens' most acclaimed novels, Bleak House (1853), having probably read the Russian translation.

[To Modest Tchaikovsky]

Kamenka, May 10th (22nd), 1882.

Modi, I am writing at night with tears in my eyes. Do not be alarmed—nothing dreadful has happened. I have just finished Bleak House, and shed a few tears, first, because I pity Lady Dedlock, and find it hard to tear myself away from all these characters with whom I have been living for two months (I began the book when I left Florence), and secondly, from gratitude that so great a writer as Dickens ever lived.

Leo Tolstoy is often cited as Tchaikovsky's favourite author. In the letter below, the composer calls Tolstoy "the greatest writer in the world, past or present". He goes on to explain Tolstoy's greatness, referencing a scene from the famous novel War and Peace (1869), which had made him burst into tears. 

Incidentally, as is evident from the letters, it was not uncommon for Tchaikovsky to shed tears while reading a book. What he wanted from literature was ultimately the same thing he wanted from music —to be emotionally moved.

[To the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich, a friend and poet/ playwright]

Moscow, October 29th (November 10th), 1889

..... I have never read Spinoza, so I speak of him from hearsay; but as regards Tolstoi, I have read and re-read him, and consider him the greatest writer in the world, past or present. His writings awake in me—apart from any powerful artistic impression—a peculiar emotion. I do not feel so deeply touched when he describes anything really emotional, such as death, suffering, separation, etc., so much as by the most ordinary, prosaic events. For instance, I remember that when reading the chapter in which Dolokhov plays cards with Rastov and wins, I burst into tears. Why should a scene in which two characters are acting in an unworthy manner affect me in this degree? The reason is simple enough. Tolstoi surveys the people he describes from such a height that they seem to him poor, insignificant pigmies who, in their blindness, injure each other in an aimless, purposeless way—and he pities them. Tolstoi has no malice; he loves and pities all his characters equally, and all their actions are the result of their own limitations and naïve egotism, their helplessness and insignificance. Therefore he never punishes his heroes for their ill doings, as Dickens does (who is a great favourite of mine), because he never depicts anyone as absolutely bad, only blind people, as it were. His humanity is far above the sentimental humanity of Dickens; it almost attains to that view of human wickedness which is expressed in the words of Christ: ‘they know not what they do.’

I am concluding this post with a comment on British author George Eliot. In the final years before his death, Tchaikovsky had found in her his new favourite author, feeling that only Tolstoy could equal her. During his travels abroad, he had come across Eliot's work and first read The Mill on the Floss (1860) and then other novels including her masterpiece Middlemarch (1871). He was so enthusiastic about them that he even read the books multiple times. Tchaikovsky decided to use some of Eliot's work as the basis for an opera. He first wanted to use The Sad History of the Reverend Amos Barton (from her 1858 short story collection Scenes of Clerical Life) but later chose Mr Gilfil's Love Story from the same collection instead. After his death, a brief scenario for Acts II and III for an opera based on Mr Gilfil's Love Story was found among his papers (read more here).

Note on dates of the letters:

During Tchaikovsky's lifetime, the Julian calendar (Old Style) was used throughout the Russian Empire, which was 12 days behind the international Gregorian calendar (New Style). Both the Old and New Style dates are used. It wasn't until 1918 that Russia would switch to the Gregorian calendar. 

Source letters: 

-Letter on Dostoyevsky via Tchaikovsky Research

-Other letters from The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1906) by Modest Tchaikovsky

Via: Project Gutenberg

-Image top: Tchaikovsky photographed by Alfred Fedetsky in Kharkov in March 1893, eights months before his death at age 53

-Image bottom: Collage, top row (l to r): Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Victor Hugo and Émile Zola; bottom row (l to r): Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, and George Eliot

Source of all images: Wikimedia Commons