LiteratureBook · 1866
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Raskolnikov, a destitute former student in St Petersburg, kills a pawnbroker to test his theory that extraordinary men may step over ordinary morality, and finds guilt rather than freedom waiting for him. Dostoevsky published it in twelve monthly installments in the journal The Russian Messenger through 1866.
Why you should read this
This is Dostoevsky's novel of guilt and psychological unraveling after a murder, written in the years after his own Siberian penal exile and drawing directly on what he saw there. It suits readers who want interior, claustrophobic narration over a wide social canvas, and it assumes patience for long philosophical digression.
- Field
- Literature
- Form
- Fiction
- Published
- 1866
- Themes
- Russian LiteratureLiterature
