Could an ordinary person, with no hint of malice and no motive but
discovering what it feels like to do it, plot to kill and then actually
murder a total stranger? What if the stranger were a thoroughly
unlikable person hated by everyone who came into contact with her? One
of the great novels of world literature, Crime and Punishment is a
thriller of the conscience, one that wrangles with morality and its
uses-or lack thereof-in the depths of poverty. Russian novelist FYODOR
MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY (1821-1881) conceived the character of his
putative hero, the impoverished student Raskolnikov, while he himself
was struggling under the burden of massive debt, and turned his ethical
dilemmas into a literary detective story of the highest order, one in
which the criminal seeks to discover his own motives for his terrible
deed. Renowned for its invention of a more intimate kind of third-person
narration, and featuring narrative manipulations of time and memory that
anticipate the works of authors such as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and
James Joyce, this classic novel remains essential reading for all lovers
of great literature. This edition presents the acclaimed 1914
translation by English writer CONSTANCE CLARA GARNETT (1861-1946), who
introduced many of the great Russian novelists to the British and
American public.
