Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read A desperate young man plans the perfect crime—the murder of a despicable pawnbroker, an old women no one loves and no one will mourn. Is it not just, he reasons, for a man of genius to commit such a crime, to transgress moral law—if it will ultimately benefit humanity? So begins one of the greatest novels ever written: a powerful psychological study, a terrifying murder mystery, a fascinating detective thriller infused with philosophical, religious and social commentary. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in a garret in the gloomy slums of St. Petersburg, carries out his grotesque scheme and plunges into a hell of persecution, madness and terror. Crime and Punishment takes the reader on a journey into the darkest recesses of the criminal and depraved mind, and exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil . . . a man who cannot escape his own conscience.

Crime and Punishment (Modern Library)

Literature & Fiction

Fyodor, Dostoyevsky

Constance Black Garnett

Literary

Modern Library

TURGENEV did for Russian literature what Byron did for English literature; he led the genius of Russia on a pilgrimage throughout all Europe. And in Europe his work reaped a glorious harvest of praise. Flaubert was astounded by him, George Sand looked up to him as to a master, Taine spoke of his work as being the finest artistic production since Sophocles. In Turgenev's work, Europe not only discovered Turgenev, but it discovered Russia, the simplicity and the naturalness of the Russian character; and this came as a revelation. For the first time Europe came across the Russian woman whom Pushkin was the first to paint; for the first time Europe came into contact with the Russian soul; and it was the sharpness of this revelation which accounts for the fact of Turgenev having received in the west an even greater meed of praise than he was perhaps entitled to. In Russia Turgenev attained almost instant popularity. His "Sportsman's Sketches" and his "Nest of Gentlefolk" made him not only famous but universally popular. In 1862 the publication of his masterpiece "Fathers and Children" dealt his reputation a blow. The revolutionary elements in Russia regarded his hero, Bazarov, as a calumny and a libel; whereas the reactionary elements in Russia looked upon "Fathers and Children" as a glorification of Nihilism. Thus he satisfied nobody. He fell between two stools. This, perhaps, could only happen in Russia to this extent; and for that same reason as that which made Russian criticism didactic. The conflicting elements of Russian society were so terribly in earnest in fighting their cause, that anyone whom they did not regard as definitely for them was at once considered an enemy, and an impartial delineation of any character concerned in the political struggle was bound to displease both parties. If a novelist drew a Nihilist, he must be one or the other, a hero or a scoundrel, if either the revolutionaries or the reactionaries were to be pleased. If in England the militant suffragists suddenly had a huge mass of educated opinion behind them and a still larger mass of educated public opinion against them, and some one were to draw in a novel an impartial picture of a suffragette, the same thing would happen. On a small scale, as far as the suffragettes are concerned, it has happened in the case of Mr. Wells. But if Turgenev's popularity suffered a shock in Russia from which it with difficulty recovered, in western Europe it went on increasing. Especially in England, Turgenev became the idol of all that was eclectic, and admiration for Turgenev a hallmark of good taste.... "Fathers and Children" is as beautifully constructed as a drama of Sophocles; the events move inevitably to a tragic close. There is not a touch of banality from beginning to end, and not an unnecessary word; the portraits of the old father and mother, the young Kirsanov, and all the minor characters are perfect; and amidst the trivial crowd Bazarov stands out like Lucifer, the strongest—the only strong character—that Turgenev created, the first Nihilist—for if Turgenev was not the first to invent the word, he was the first to apply it in this sense. Bazarov is the incarnation of the Lucifer type that recurs again and again in Russian history and fiction, in sharp contrast to the meek, humble type of Ivan Durak. Lermontov's Pechorin was in some respects an anticipation of Bazarov; so were the many Russian rebels. He is the man who denies, to whom art is a silly toy, who detests abstractions, knowledge, and the love of Nature; he believes in nothing; he bows to nothing; he can break, but he cannot bend; he does break, and that is the tragedy, but, breaking, he retains his invincible pride…. —From "An Outline of Russian Literature" (1914).

Fathers And Children

Ivan Ivan Turgenev

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov.                   Translated by Constance Garnett.                "The Lady with the Dog"  is a short story by Anton Chekhov first published in 1899. It tells the story of an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. The story comprises four parts: part I describes the initial meeting in Yalta, part II the consummation of the affair and the remaining time in Yalta, part III Gurov's return to Moscow and his visit to Anna's town, and part IV Anna's visits to Moscow. Vladimir Nabokov declared that it was one of the greatest short stories ever written.  Dmitri Gurov is a Moscow bank worker, married with a daughter and two sons. Unhappy in his marriage, he is frequently unfaithful and considers women to be of “a lower race”. While vacationing in Yalta, he sees a young lady walking along the seafront with her small dog, and endeavors to make her acquaintance. The lady, Anna Sergeyevna, is also vacationing, while her husband remains at home in an unnamed provincial town. They are soon engaged in an affair, and spend most of their time together walking and taking drives to nearby Oreanda. Though she is expecting her husband to come to Yalta, he eventually sends for her to come home, saying that something is wrong with his eyes. Gurov sees her off at the station.  Returning to Moscow and his daily routine, working by day and clubbing by night, Gurov expects to soon forget young Anna but finds he is haunted by her memory. On the ruse of going to St. Petersburg to take care of some business, he sets off to her town to find her. Learning the location of the family’s residence from a hotel porter, he finds the house, only to realize that it would be futile to intrude. In despair, he reasons that Anna has probably forgotten him and found someone else, and heads back to his hotel for a long nap.

Lady With The Dog And Other Stories

Anton Chekov

The Raw Youth also published as The Adolescent or An Accidental Family, is a novel by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in 1875. Ronald Hingley, author of Russians and Society and a specialist in Dostoyevsky's works, named this novel a bad one, whereas Richard Pevear (in the introduction to his and Larissa Volokhonsky's 2003 translation of the novel), vehemently defended its worth in spite of those who have deemed the work a failure. Originally, Dostoyevsky had created the work under the title "Discord". The novel chronicles the life of 19-year-old intellectual, Arkady Dolgoruky, illegitimate child of the controversial and womanizing landowner Versilov. A focus of the novel is the recurring conflict between father and son, particularly in ideology, which represents the battles between the conventional "old" way of thinking in the 1840s and the new nihilistic point of view of the youth of 1860s Russia. Whereas the young of Arkady's time embraced a very negative opinion of Russian culture in contrast to Western or European culture. Another main theme is Arkady's development and utilization of his "idea" in his life, mainly a form of rebellion against society (and his father) through the rejection of attending a university, and the making of money and living independently, onto the eventual aim of becoming excessively wealthy and powerful.

Raw Youth

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

The Bishop and Other Stories

Bishop And Other Stories

Anton Pavloviç Çehov

Excerpt from Chapter 1: “It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, so bright that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself whether ill-humoured and capricious people could live under such a sky. That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently into your heart!... Speaking of capricious and ill-humoured people, I cannot help recalling my moral condition all that day. From early morning I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances?”

White Nights And Other Stories

This challenging novel contrasts the two forms of love that the Russian Sanin is confronted with - his beloved Gemma and the 'free' woman, Maria Nikolaevna. Maria warns Sanin that he will have to be able to forget as she diverts him from Gemma for her own pleasure - the frenzy of physical love. For Turgenev this was clearly not an easy matter - he wanted the purity of untarnished love - apparently what the French call 'amities amoureuses'; erotic but not genital. But Sanin is a man - how can he resist the passion when the opportunity arises, the passion that all of nature calls to action? Having been sullied by his actions - in his own eyes - he flees his Gemma, fails to forget, and slips into an unsatisfactory existence. But Turgenev is kind to us - and Sanin, because at the end of the novel he allows Sanin to make contact again with Gemma (then living in America) and to be comforted by her mature forgiveness and learn that her life has been good despite the disaster of Sanin's abandonment. Perhaps the hardest of all human experiences is just not knowing .....

Torrents Of Spring

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Brothers Karamazov

The Lady with the Dog is perhaps Chekhov's best known and certainly one of his best-loved stories. It exemplifies the author's subtle yet powerful style, as Chekhov is economical with language and never says more than he needs. He conveys emotional complexity in just a few words, thus preserving the intensity of his characters' feelings. For example, on first seeing Anna at the theater in her hometown, Chekhov expresses Dmitri's romantic yearning with the passage: "she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lornette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy. He thought and dreamed." The author writes as though he is painting a canvas, producing a work that is grand in scope yet intimate in feel. The author uses colors to convey both the changing spirits and feelings of the characters, as they veer from the grandly impressive to the muted and prosaic. For example, the aging Dmitri's hair is described as graying, and he often wears gray suits, whereas the sea at Yalta is suffused with color as "the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was a golden streak from the moon upon it." Chekhov presents Yalta as a romantic oasis for Anna and Dmitri, a place of color, freedom, and intimacy that they cannot hope to recreate elsewhere. The lovers worry about what they mean to one another--Anna frets that Dmitri thinks of her only as a "common woman," while Dmitri thinks that Anna is beguiled by a false impression of him as a "kind, exceptional, lofty" man--because both recognize that their relationship is founded on past disappointments and future hopes, as well as on present desires. Chekhov thus plays with our implicit belief that characters do not exist beyond their narrative framework: clearly, Anna and Dmitri are people defined by the past and their dreams for the future, as much as they are by the short period of their lives conveyed here.

Lady With The Little Dog And Other Stories

Cedar Lake Publications

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Constance Black Garnett. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Constance Black Garnett

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Constance Black Garnett. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Crime and Punishment (Modern Library)

Fathers And Children

Lady With The Dog And Other Stories

Raw Youth

Bishop And Other Stories

White Nights And Other Stories

Torrents Of Spring

Brothers Karamazov

Lady With The Little Dog And Other Stories

Lady With The Dog And Other Stories