"A truly great translation . . . This English version . . . really is better." --A. N. Wilson, The Spectator

This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky's "psychological record of a crime" gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders alone through the slums of St. Petersburg, deliriously imagining himself above society's laws. But when he commits a random murder, only suffering ensues. Embarking on a...

Within Uncle's Dream and The Permanent Husband are two of Dostoyevsky's novellas. Uncle's Dreams is narrated with objectivity, satire, and social reportage in its comic send-up of small-town manners and morals. It has been described as "one of the most powerful studies of despair in world literature, a banging on closed doors imagined with absolute fearlessness." The Permanent Husband involves a psychotic game of cat-and-mouse I which Velchaninov feverishly wonders what Pavel Pavlovitch knows about his late wife's affair. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer and philosopher whose literary...

Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin finds himself at the center of a struggle between a beautiful kept woman and a virtuous and pretty young girl, both of whom win his affection. Unfortunately, Myshkin's very goodness precipitates disaster, leaving the impression that, in a world obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium may be the only place for a saint. Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer and philosopher whose literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia.

'I could see that she was still terribly afraid, but I didn't soften anything; instead, seeing that she was afraid I deliberately intensified it.' In this short story, Dostoyevsky masterfully depicts desperation, greed, manipulation and suicide. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California...

'My God A whole minute of bliss Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

The Gambler is a riveting portrait of a desperate young man in the grip of gambling addiction, a compulsion that author Dostoyevsky knew about intimately. In this succinct but powerful novel, the Russian master examines the irresistible impulses in human nature that take us to the dark side. The heroine of the story, Polina, is based on Polina Suslova, Dostoyevsky's lover in 1862-63.

The Gambler is a riveting portrait of a desperate young man in the grip of gambling addiction, a compulsion that author Dostoyevsky knew about intimately. In this succinct but powerful novel, the Russian master examines the irresistible impulses in human nature that take us to the dark side. The heroine of the story, Polina, is based on Polina Suslova, Dostoyevsky's lover in 1862-63.

Often called the first existentialist work, Dostoyevsky's 1864 Notes from Underground touches on many of the philosophical problems dealt with in the Russian master's novels. The story is written in the form of a journal belonging to an unnamed man who withdrawn himself from society into an underground existence. The first part is a monologue in which the narrator philosophizes and then laughs at his ideas; the second part is a recounting of adventures from the narrator's life, which exemplify some of the ideas propounded in the first part of the story.

Notes from Underground is considered one of Dostoyevsky's most powerful and original stories and marks the starting point of his literary maturity.