Description
Notes from Underground is a fictional collection of memoirs written by a civil servant living alone in St. Petersburg. The man is never named and is generally referred to as the Underground Man. The “underground” in the book refers to the narrator’s isolation, which he described in chapter 11 as “listening through a crack under the floor.”
It is considered to be one of the first existentialist novels. With this book, Dostoevsky challenged the ideologies of his time, like nihilism and utopianism. The Underground Man shows how idealized rationality in utopias is inherently flawed, because it doesn’t account for the irrational side of humanity.
This novel has had a big impact on many different works of literature and philosophy. It has influenced writers like Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche. A similar character is also found in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
Notes from Underground was published in 1864 as the first four issues of Epoch, a Russian magazine by Fyodor and Mikhail Dostoevsky. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s translation from 1918.
Description
Dmitri Karamazov and his father Fyodor are at war over both Dmitri’s inheritance and the affections of the beautiful Grushenka. Into this feud arrive the middle brother Ivan, recently returned from Moscow, and the youngest sibling Alyosha, who has been released into the wider world from the local monastery by the elder monk Zossima. Through a series of accidents of fate and wilful misunderstandings the Karamazovs edge closer to tragedy, while the local townspeople watch on.
The Brothers Karamazov was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, and was originally serialised in The Russian Messenger before being published as a complete novel in 1880. This edition is the well-received 1912 English translation by Constance Garnett. As well as earning wide-spread critical acclaim, the novel has been widely influential in literary and philosophical circles; Franz Kafka and James Joyce admired the emotions that verge on madness in the Karamazovs, while Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Satre found inspiration in the themes of patricide and existentialism.
Description
Crime and Punishment tells the story of Rodion Raskolnikov, an ex-student who plans to murder a pawnbroker to test his theory of personality. Having accomplished the deed, Raskolnikov struggles with mental anguish while trying to both avoid the consequences and hide his guilt from his friends and family.
Dostoevsky’s original idea for the novel centered on the Marmeladov family and the impact of alcoholism in Russia, but inspired by a double murder in France he decided to rework it around the new character of Raskolnikov. The novel was first serialized in The Russian Messenger over the course of 1866, where it was an instant success. It was published in a single volume in 1867. Presented here is Constance Garnett’s 1914 translation.
Description
In the fictional town of Roulettenberg, Germany, a Russian tutor to the children of a seemingly wealthy general is enticed to play roulette at the local casino. First playing for others (including his beloved Polina Alexandrovna), he soon gets a taste for the experience himself, which can lead in only one direction.
Dostoevsky wrote this story based at least partially on personal experience. After his second marriage (and the successful publication of Crime and Punishment) he and his wife took a honeymoon in Baden-Baden, where Dostoevsky lost large quantities of money at the roulette table. To get his financial situation back to normal he then set up a wager with his publisher: they’d have the right to publish his work for free for nine years if he couldn’t deliver this novel by November 1866. He succeeded in this, and was able to move on to writing The Idiot.
The Gambler has been translated to screen and radio, and was even turned into an opera by Prokofiev. This edition is the 1915 translation by C. J. Hogarth.
Description
In 1840s St. Petersburg the ageing copyist Makar Dievushkin is, with various degrees of subtlety, trying to woo Barbara Dobroselova, a young woman who has had a swift fall in fortunes. Told in alternating letters to each other, their past stories and current hopes play out in raw and personal detail, as the daily realities of an uncaring and expensive town take hold.
Poor Folk was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s first novel and was written to try and cover his escalating debts from his expensive lifestyle and gambling addiction. Luckily for Dostoevsky, it was an immediate success when it was published in the St. Petersburg Collection, and the accolades from critics such as Belinsky and Herzen propelled him into the high echelons of Russian literary society. This edition is the 1915 translation by C. J. Hogarth.