A new translation of Poor Folk, the debut novella that first brought the author of Crime and Punishment fame at the age of twenty-five, along with his other early stories, all showcasing the concern for human dignity that animated his later work.
The short novel Poor Folk portrays the passionate relationship between two young distant cousins, a clerk and a seamstress who live across the street from each other in conditions of dire poverty. Through an exchange of letters, they share with each other their struggles, their past tragedies, their mutual love of literature, and their growing hopes for a future together—until a rich man proposes to the young woman and offers her a path to a different life, leaving her cousin behind.
The other stories in the collection—"Mister Prokharchin," "Another Man’s Wife and a Husband Under the Bed," "White Nights," and "Uncle’s Dream"—display a remarkable variety of narrative voices. Combining satiric comedy with weightier themes, these early tales reveal their author already exercising the formal inventiveness he became so well known for.
Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky’s life was as dark and dramatic as the great novels he wrote. He was born in Moscow in 1821. A short first novel, Poor Folk (1846), brought him instant success, but his writing career was cut short by his arrest for alleged subversion against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849. His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a profoundly religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels. But it was his fortuitous marriage to Anna Snitkina, following a period of utter destitution brought about by his compulsive gambling, that gave Dostoevsky the emotional stability to complete Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868–1869), The Possessed (1871–1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). When Dostoevsky died in 1881, he left a legacy of masterworks that influenced the great thinkers and writers of the Western world and immortalized him as a giant among writers of world literature.
View titles by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A new translation of Poor Folk, the debut novella that first brought the author of Crime and Punishment fame at the age of twenty-five, along with his other early stories, all showcasing the concern for human dignity that animated his later work.
The short novel Poor Folk portrays the passionate relationship between two young distant cousins, a clerk and a seamstress who live across the street from each other in conditions of dire poverty. Through an exchange of letters, they share with each other their struggles, their past tragedies, their mutual love of literature, and their growing hopes for a future together—until a rich man proposes to the young woman and offers her a path to a different life, leaving her cousin behind.
The other stories in the collection—"Mister Prokharchin," "Another Man’s Wife and a Husband Under the Bed," "White Nights," and "Uncle’s Dream"—display a remarkable variety of narrative voices. Combining satiric comedy with weightier themes, these early tales reveal their author already exercising the formal inventiveness he became so well known for.
Creators
Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky’s life was as dark and dramatic as the great novels he wrote. He was born in Moscow in 1821. A short first novel, Poor Folk (1846), brought him instant success, but his writing career was cut short by his arrest for alleged subversion against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849. His prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a profoundly religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels. But it was his fortuitous marriage to Anna Snitkina, following a period of utter destitution brought about by his compulsive gambling, that gave Dostoevsky the emotional stability to complete Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868–1869), The Possessed (1871–1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). When Dostoevsky died in 1881, he left a legacy of masterworks that influenced the great thinkers and writers of the Western world and immortalized him as a giant among writers of world literature.
View titles by Fyodor Dostoevsky
