This is a critical introduction to Dostoyevsky's work Professor of Peace concentrates on the four major novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils and The Brothers Karamazov. He analyses them in detail, paying particular attention to theme, interprets complexities of structure and characterisation, and defines Dostoyevsky's literary achievement. His arguments are reinforced by extensive quotation in English.

This indispensible text can justly be regarded as the forerunner to the great flowering of Dostoevsky's novels which was to follow. The first part of this unusual work is often treated as a philosophical text in its own right; the second part illustrates the theory of the first by means of its own fictional practice. At the same time, the reader is introduced to the phenomenon of the 'Underground Man', one of the first genuine anti-heroes in European literature.