Literary characters are most often the author's invention. But sometimes a writer, in search of his hero, turns to real life. A prototype is a specific historical person or contemporary, whose personality served as the author’s starting point for creating an image. Gorky believed that a writer is obliged to speculate and typify the image of a real person. And the study of the prototypes of Dostoevsky’s characters requires significant philosophical knowledge, so deeply did the writer immerse himself in human existence. Quite often, close friends, acquaintances, and sometimes lovers of writers became the prototypes of literary heroes. Often, accurate portraits of real adventurers or dubious adventure lovers appeared on the pages of books... The next book in the series tells about one hundred of the most famous and recognizable literary heroes and their prototypes.