Notes From Underground & Other Stories - The Works of Dostoevsky

With an Introduction and Notes by David Rampton, Department of English, University of Ottowa.

Notes from Underground and Other Stories is a comprehensive collection of Dostoyevsky’s short fiction. Many of these stories, like his great novels, reveal his special sympathy for the solitary and dispossessed, explore the same complex psychological issues and subtly combine rich characterization and philosophical meditations on the (often) dark areas of the human psyche, all conveyed in an idiosyncratic blend of deadly seriousness and wild humour.

In Notes from Underground, the Underground Man casually dismantles utilitarianism and celebrates in its stead a perverse but vibrant masochism. A Christmas Tree and a Wedding recounts the successful pursuit of a young girl by a lecherous old man. In Bobok, one Ivan Ivanovitch listens in on corpses gossiping in a cemetery and ends up deploring their depravity. In A Gentle Spirit, the narrator describes his dawning recognition that he is responsible for his wife’s suicide. In short, as a commentator on spiritual stagnation, Dostoevsky has no equal.

Part of The Works of Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian author whose works deal with human psychology in the often troubled political and social environment that was 19th-century Russia. Many literary critics agree that he is one of the greatest psychologists world literature has ever seen. His major works include: Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.

This collection contains:

• Crime and Punishment;
• Devils;
• House of the Dead & The Gambler;
• Idiot;
• Karamazov Brothers;
• Notes From Underground & Other Stories.