The shorter works of one of the world's greatest writers, including The Gambler and Notes from UndergroundThe short works of Dostoevsky exist in the very large shadow of his astonishing longer novels, but they too are among literature's most revered works. The Gambler chronicles Dostoevsky's own add[...]

This Casebook is a collection of interpretations of Crime and Punishment. The selection not only reflects earlier work by major critics in the field, but also more recent studies. At the same time the choice of critical approaches has been made on the basis of covering the novel's various aspects: D[...]

Inspired by Dostoevsky's own gambling addiction and written under pressure in order to pay off his creditors and retain his rights to his literary legacy, The Gambler is set in the casino of the fictional German spa town of Roulettenburg and follows the misfortunes of the young tutor Alexei Ivanovic[...]

'It is best to do nothing The best thing is conscious inertia So long live the underground ' Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking "Notes from Underground" tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter [...]

Set in mid 19th-century Russia, "Demons "examines the effect of a charismatic but unscrupulous self-styled revolutionary leader on a group of credulous followers.Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of "Demons" as a "novel-pamp[...]

Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, is determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammeled individual will. When he commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that, for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, [...]

Dostoevsky's most revolutionary novel, "Notes from Underground" marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has def[...]

Prince Myshkin, a good yet simple man, is out of place in the corrupt world obsessed by wealth, power, and sexual conquest created by Russia's elite ruling class, as he becomes caught in the middle of a violent love triangle with two women who become rivals for his attention. Reprint. 12,500 first p[...]

"The connection between these works is unmistakable, as is their direct relation to Dostoevsky's life--sensational, harrowing, and frenzied."
--From the Introduction by Ralph E. Matlow
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Dostoevsky's portrayal of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition is a plea for the power of pure faith, and a critique of the tyrannies of institutionalized religion.[...]