Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction and Notes by Agnes Cardinal, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions and manners. His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh indictment of the Russian ruling class of his day who have created a world which cannot accomodate the goodness of this idiot.

With an Introduction and Notes by David Rampton, Department of English, University of Ottowa. Notes from Underground and Other Stories is a comprehensive collection of Dostoevsky's short fiction. Many of these stories, like his great novels, reveal his special sympathy for the solitary and dispossessed, explore the same complex psychological issues and subtly combine rich characterization and philosophical meditations on the (often) dark areas of the human psyche, all conveyed in an idiosyncratic blend of deadly seriousness and wild humour. In Notes from Underground, the Underground Man casually dismantles utilitarianism and celebrates in its stead a perverse but vibrant masochism. A Christmas Tree and a Wedding recounts the successful pursuit of a young girl by a lecherous old man. In Bobok, one Ivan Ivanovitch listens in on corpses gossiping in a cemetery and ends up deploring their depravity. In A Gentle Spirit, the narrator describes his dawning recognition that he is responsible for his wife's suicide. In short, as a commentator on spiritual stagnation, Dostoevsky has no equal.

Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction by A. D. P. Briggs. As Fyodor Karamazov awaits an amorous encounter, he is violently done to death. The three sons of the old debauchee are forced to confront their own guilt or complicity. Who will own to parricide? The reckless and passionate Dmitri? The corrosive intellectual Ivan? Surely not the chaste novice monk Alyosha? The search reveals the divisions which rack the brothers, yet paradoxically unite them. Around the writhings of this one dysfunctional family Dostoevsky weaves a dense network of social, psychological and philosophical relationships. At the same time he shows - from the opening 'scandal' scene in the monastery to a personal appearance by an eccentric Devil - that his dramatic skills have lost nothing of their edge. The Karamazov Brothers, completed a few months before Dostoevsky's death in 1881, remains for many the high point of his genius as novelist and chronicler of the modern malaise. It cast a long shadow over D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and other giants of twentieth-century European literature.

"Mesmerizingly good ... the best, truest translation of Dostoevsky's masterpiece into English. It's a magnificent, almost terrifying achievement of translation, one that makes its predecessors, however worthy, seem safe and polite."-STEVE DONAGHUE, Open Letters Monthly

Poverty-stricken and cut off from society, former law student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov leads a desolate life in a dreary little room in St Petersburg. Having abandoned all hopes of sustaining himself through work, he now obsesses over the idea of changing his fortunes through an extreme act of violence: the killing of an elderly pawnbroker. His mind baulks at the horror of his plan, but when he hears that his sister Dunya is about to agree to a loveless marriage in order to escape the advances of her employer, his disgust for the world becomes unbounded, and his feelings of rebellion and revenge push him closer and closer to the edge of the precipice. A masterpiece of psychological insight, Dostoevsky's 1866 novel features some of its author's most memorable characters - from the temperamental protagonist Raskolnikov to the amoral sensualist Svidrigailov and the immoral lawyer Luzhin. Presented here in a sparkling new translation by Roger Cockerell, Crime and Punishment is a towering work in Russian nineteenth-century fiction and a landmark of world literature.

Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction by A.D.P. Briggs. In 1869 a young Russian was strangled, shot through the head and thrown into a pond. His crime? A wish to leave a small group of violent revolutionaries, from which he had become alienated. Dostoevsky takes this real-life catastrophe as the subject and culmination of Devils, a title that refers the young radicals themselves and also to the materialistic ideas that possessed the minds of many thinking people Russian society at the time. The satirical portraits of the revolutionaries, with their naivety, ludicrous single-mindedness and readiness for murder and destruction, might seem exaggerated - until we consider their all-too-recognisable descendants in the real world ever since. The key figure in the novel, however, is beyond politics. Nikolay Stavrogin, another product of rationalism run wild, exercises his charisma with ruthless authority and total amorality. His unhappiness is accounted for when he confesses to a ghastly sexual crime - in a chapter long suppressed by the censor. This prophetic account of modern morals and politics, with its fifty-odd characters, amazing events and challenging ideas, is seen by some critics as Dostoevsky's masterpiece.

Translated by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Anthony Briggs. Dostoevsky's fascination for mental breakdown and violence (20 murders in his four main novels) was based on his own life, and these two unmistakably autobiographical works bear this out. The House of the Dead is fiction, but based on his four years in a Siberian prison. An educated upper-class man is condemned to live among criminals and brutal guards, with arbitrary punishments, lousy food, disgusting living conditions, hard toil and many floggings. Somehow he avoids bitterness and recrimination; faith in humanity survives. With its breadth of characterisation, acute sense of detail and strong narrative interest, this work can still shock, entertain and inspire. In The Gambler we see the Russian community in a German spa town. Drawn to the casino, Alexey becomes obsessed with roulette. In a gripping story, full of psychological interest, his growing mania eclipses even his interest in Polina, a heroine of demonic and vibrant sexuality. Dostoevsky himself was rescued from a similar gambling obsession by the young stenographer who took down this work at his dictation and married him soon afterwards.

The unnamed narrator of the novel, a former government official, has decided to retire from the world and lead a life of inactivity and contemplation. His fiercely bitter, cynical and witty monologue ranges from general observations and philosophical musings to memorable scenes from his own life, including his obsessive plans to exact revenge on an officer who has shown him disrespect and a dramatic encounter with a prostitute. Seen by many as the first existentialist novel and showcasing the best of Dostoevsky's dry humour, Notes from Underground was a pivotal moment in the development of modern literature and has inspired countless novelists, thinkers and film-makers.

A magnificent new translation of Dostoevsky's masterpiece, which when first published in 1991 was described by the TIMES as 'a miracle' and by THE INDEPENDENT as a near 'ideal translation'. The BROTHERS KARAMAZOV - Dostoevsky's most widely read novel - is at once a murder mystery, a mordant comedy of family intrigue, a pioneering work of psychological realism and an unblinking look into the abyss of human suffering.

"It may seem paradoxical to speak of such insights as liberating, or to find in the Underground Man's impassioned rejection of rational humanitarianism a call to arms. Yet each age we live through as individuals demands a certain kind of book- just as each era thieves the last with a magpie's lust for the gewgaws of thought. Oddly enough, now I come to look at Notes again- and examine it in the round- I discover that my revised impression of it as a text at once jejune and cynical, callow as well as wise, is not, perhaps, too far from reality." -Will Self ""(Dostoevsky)... is the man more than any other who has created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch." -James Joyce Notes from the Underground is Fyodor Dostoevsky's ninth novel, and considered to be one of the first examples of the existential novel. In this radically inventive work, an alienated former minor administrator in nineteenth-century Russia has broken away from society and withdrawn into an underground identity. With its piercing insight into political, social, and moral issues, this classic is one of the most provocative work of literature ever written. In the first half of the novel, the unnamed narrator, a cynical recluse in 1860's St. Petersburg, attacks the ideologies of inherent laws of self-interest; he is crippled with self-loathing, and bound by his contempt of certain political attitudes of his day. He welcomes any psychic or physical pain in his life as he believe it rails against the complacency of modern society. The second half, entitled "Apropos of the Wet Snow", the narrator relates his alienated relationships he experiences with others, including old school chums and a prostitute named Liza, who is only demeaned in his misanthropic mind. A singular document of the depravity of human consciousness, this is one of the most powerful pieces of literature ever written. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Notes from the Underground is both modern and readable.

This acclaimed English version of Dostoevsky's magnificent last novel does justice to al lits levels of artistry and intention; as murder mystery, black comedy, pioneering work of psychological realism, and enduring statement about freedom, sin and suffering.

A seemingly well-reasoned justification of murder comes to pieces as the murderer is forced to confront the true nature of his crime. After much thought Rodion Raskolnikov determines that certain special people deserve the right to step outside of normal law and order to accomplish difficult deeds for the good of others and even humanity as a whole. Trapped in desperate poverty, he justifies his plan to rob and kill a rich, unpopular pawnbroker, reasoning that he will take the money, survive and go on to do good things for others. The terrible act of murder, and the unstoppable cascade of events that follow, throw Raskolnikov into a nightmare of mental unbalance and moral torment. One situation after another arises that drives home his guilt and shows how his brutal act has resulted in nothing but destruction and pain. A surprise visit from family and a policeman who seems teasingly, sardonically aware of his guilt thrust Raskolnikov into a position where he can't tell if even confession will supply meaningful redemption. First published in 1866, Crime and Punishment stands as one of the most acclaimed novels of all time and remains unsurpassed in its penetrating psychology and raw glimpses of a mind wracked by moral confusion and fundamental questions of how to do the right thing. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Crime and Punishment is both modern and readable.