Book description
From the award-winning translators of Crime and Punishment,
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
The apology and confession of a minor mid-19th-century Russian
official, Notes from Underground is a half-desperate,
half-mocking political critique and a powerful, at times absurdly
comical, account of man's breakaway from society and descent 'underground'.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow on 11th November 1821. He had
six siblings and his mother died in 1837 and his father in 1839. He
graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Military Engineering in 1846
but decided to change careers and become a writer. His first book,
Poor Folk,
did very well but on 23rd April 1849 he was arrested for subversion and
sentenced to death. After a mock-execution his sentence was commuted to
hard labour in Siberia where he developed epilepsy. He was released in
1854. His 1860 book,
The House of the Dead
was based on these experiences. In 1857 he married Maria Dmitrievna
Isaeva. After his release he adopted more conservative and traditional
values and rejected his previous socialist position. In the following
years he spent a lot of time abroad, struggled with an addiction to
gambling and fell deeply in debt. His wife died in 1864 and he married
Anna Grigoryeva Snitkina. In the following years he published his most
enduring and successful books, including
Crime and Punishment
(1865). He died on 9th February 1881.
