Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Grand Inquisitor is a poem (a story within a story) inside Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880). It is recited by Ivan Karamazov, who questions the possibility of a personal and benevolent God, to his brother Alexei (Alyosha), a novice monk. "The Grand Inquisitor" is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and its fundamental...

One of Dostoyevsky's most famous novels, this 1872 work utilizes five main characters and their philosophical ideas to describe the political chaos of Imperial Russia in the nineteenth century. Based on an actual event involving the murder of a revolutionary by his comrades, this novel depicts a band of ruthless radicals attempting to incite revolt in their small, rural community. At the center of "The Possessed" lies Dostoyevsky's desire to protest...

Alexey Ivanovitch, a young tutor working in the household of an imperious Russian general, tries to break through the wall of the established order in Russia, but instead becomes mired in the endless downward spiral of betting and loss. His intense and inescapable addiction is accentuated by his affair with the general's cruel yet seductive niece, Polina.

Advised by his doctor to become more sociable, Golyadkin, a low-level bureaucrat, arrives uninvited at a birthday party his office manager is having for his daughter. After a number of socially awkward and increasingly uncomfortable moments, Golyadkin is asked to leave and flees the party. While making his way home through a snowstorm, an extraordinary thing happens: Golyadkin meets his double. At first the two are friendly, but it quickly becomes...

From the publisher. This superb new translation -- never before published -- of one of Dostoevsky's major novels comes from the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Adolescent (originally published in English as A Raw Youth) is markedly different in tone from Dostoevsky's other masterpieces. It is told from the point of view of the nineteen-year-old narrator, whose immaturity, freshness, and naïveté are unforgettably...

"In 1849 Dostoevsky was sentenced to four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison camp for his participation in a utopian socialist discussion group. The account he wrote after his release, based on notes he smuggled out, was the first book to reveal life inside the Russian penal system. The book not only brought him fame but also founded the tradition of Russian prison writing. Notes from a Dead House (sometimes translated as The House of the Dead)...

"The Double" centres on a government clerk who goes mad. It deals with the internal psychological struggle of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, who repeatedly encounters someone who is his exact double in appearance but confident, aggressive, and extroverted, characteristics that are the polar opposites to those of the toadying "pushover" protagonist. The motif of the novella is a 'doppelgänger', known throughout the world in various...

This key to understanding Dostoyevsky's masterpiece and the author's creative intentions offers a remarkable behind-the-scenes look at the composition of Crime and Punishment, from its first inception to its conclusion. Dostoyevsky's notebooks chronicle the trials, mistakes, and uncertainties that hindered his progress. They also reveal insights into the workings of his imagination and significant details about the novel's ultimate content. Professor...