'Dostoyevsky's finest masterpiece' John Bayley

Dostoyevsky's great novel of damnation and redemption evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur. It tells the story of Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, who wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be beyond conventional moral laws. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck.

Translated with an Introduction and notes by DAVID McDUFF

A thrilling study of guilt and power, the Penguin Classics edition of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment is translated with an introduction and notes by David McDuff.

About the Author
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. His debut, the epistolary novella Poor Folk(1846), made his name. In 1849 he was arrested for involvement with the politically subversive 'Petrashevsky circle' and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison in Omsk, Siberia. From this experience came The House of the Dead (1860-2). In 1860 he began the journal Vremya (Time). Already married, he fell in love with one of his contributors, Appollinaria Suslova, eighteen years his junior, and developed a ruinous passion for roulette. After the death of his first wife, Maria, in 1864, Dostoyevsky completed Notes from Underground and began work towards Crime and Punishment (1866). The major novels of his late period are The Idiot (1868), Demons(1871-2) and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80). He died in 1881.

Reviews

Awards
Runner-up for The BBC Big Read Top 100 2003. Short-listed for BBC Big Read Top 100 2003.



Book Information
ISBN 9780140449136
Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Format Paperback
Page Count 720
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 490g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 30mm