Notes from Underground and The Double (translated by Constance Garnett)

A predecessor to such monumental works as “Crime and Punishment” and “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Notes from Underground” represents a turning point in Dostoyevsky’s writing towards the more political side. In this work we find a story in two parts, the first a rambling memoir of a bitter, isolated, retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the second part we follow the unnamed narrator through a series of events which further exhibit the consciousness of a man who is disillusioned by the oppression and corruption of the society in which he lives. A philosophically dark and politically charged novel, “Notes from Underground” shows Dostoyevsky using the narrative form as a device for criticizing the prevailing ideologies of his time, mainly nihilism and rational egoism. In “The Double” we see an intense psychological study of its main character, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, a government clerk who becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea that a man who bears a striking resemblance to him is trying to take over his identity. “Notes from Underground” and “The Double” are two of Dostoyevsky’s more popular shorter works, which exhibit the author’s uncanny ability to portray the darker side of the human psyche. This edition is printed follows the translations of Constance Garnett and includes a biographical afterword.