Fyodor Dostoevsky
1) Poor Folk
Author
Language
English
Description
Financial difficulties resulting from an extravagant lifestyle and excessive gambling led Fyodor Dostoevsky to pen his first novel "Poor Folk". First published in 1846, "Poor Folk" is the story of impoverished cousins Varvara Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin. The two live in run-down apartments across the street from each other in St. Petersburg. Through a series of letters to each other we learn of the suffering, humiliation, and isolation that results...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
One of the most influential novels of the nineteenth century, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment tells the tragic story of Raskolnikov-a talented former student whose warped philosophical outlook drives him to commit murder. Surprised by his sense of guilt and terrified of the consequences of his actions, Raskolnikov wanders through the slums of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg trying to escape the ever-suspicious Porfiry, the official investigating...
Author
Series
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pub. Date
2007
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The Adolescent" is Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1875 novel which tells the story of the life of a 19-year-old intellectual, Arkady Dolgoruky, and his conflict with his father. Arkady is the illegitimate child of the controversial and womanizing landowner Versilov and was raised by one of Versilov's serf, the pious Makar Dolgoruky. The novel's primary tension arises between Arkady and Versilov, when Arkady becomes an adult and joins Versilov's family in St....
4) White Nights
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"White Nights" is the story about a melancholic daydreamer, who spends his life idling in St. Petersburg and indulging in existential questions. He is so much in a world of his own that any actual real-life encounter leaves him bewildered and numb. Dostoevsky’s powerful and detailed psychological portrait makes the reader identify with the protagonist, who cannot but seek means of consoling him. One day a random encounter takes place and the story...
5) The Double
Author
Series
Publisher
Blackstone Publishing
Pub. Date
2012
Language
English
Description
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...
6) Polzunkov
Author
Language
English
Description
Though he is best known for his realist and deep realistic and psychological novels, Dostoevsky’s literary life produced memorable short stories as well. "Polzunkov" is a story that should not be skipped by the author’s fans and the connoisseurs of short story writing in general. It is a tale about a joke that misfired on the protagonist Polzunkov, whose expectations crash down headlong in the end. Another narrative that explores the theme of...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In 1880 Dostoevsky completed The Brothers Karamazov, the literary effort for which he had been preparing all his life. Compelling, profound, complex, it is the story of a patricide and of the four sons who each had a motive for murder: Dmitry, the sensualist, Ivan, the intellectual; Alyosha, the mystic; and twisted, cunning Smerdyakov, the bastard child. Frequently lurid, nightmarish, always brilliant, the novel plunges the reader into a sordid...
8) The Gambler
Author
Language
English
Description
One of Dostoevsky’s shorter novels, "The Gambler" reflects the author’s own difficult and prolonged battles with gambling as one of his major addictions. It is the story of a young man with aspirations to see and go beyond the established order, but in reality only gets stuck deeper and deeper into addiction and degradation. Dostoevsky does a great job in painting the psychological portrait of the protagonist, Alexey, who is having difficulties...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A Little Hero" is a short story that deals with the topic of pre-adolescence, maturity, the abandonment of pure childhood, and the resulting and inevitable discovery of the existence of sexual life. The protagonist is trying to understand the world of adults in every possible way, and faces problems at every turn. Interesting enough, this story lacks the trademark disaster and drama in the majority of Dostoevsky’s works, and is a light and humorous...
Author
Series
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Pub. Date
2012
Language
English
Formats
Description
This collection, unique to the Modern Library, gathers seven of Dostoevsky's key works and shows him to be equally adept at the short story as with the novel. Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from the Underground, a story of guilt, ineffectiveness, and...