Book description
MY PENGUIN BOOKS BY THE GREATS, COVERS BY YOU. Raskolnikov, a destitute
and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg
and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines
himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose
beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of
cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is
pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of
his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden
prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born in Moscow in 1821, the 2nd
of 7 children. From 1849 to 1854 he lived in a convict prison, and in
later years his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt. In 1880
he delivered his famous address at theunveiling of Pushkin's memorial
in Moscow; he died six months later in 1881.
David McDuff has translated a number of nineteenth-century Russian
prose works for the Penguin Classics series.
