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Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866

Held by Standard Ebooks, PG 2554read here

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Raskolnikov, a poor former law student in Saint Petersburg, kills an old pawnbroker. He believes that an extraordinary man may cross the moral line for a higher goal, and that the money would free him from poverty. After the deed he is overwhelmed by fever, paranoia and guilt. He circles the detective Porfiry, befriends Sonya, who is driven by poverty into prostitution, and faces the sinister Svidrigailov. Sonya reads him the raising of Lazarus. He confesses and is sent to Siberia, where the epilogue points to a slow renewal.

Where it happens

  1. Saint Petersburg The setting, a city of poverty and rationalist ideas.1
  2. Sennaya Square Critical scenes in the novel take place on this square.1
  3. Moscow Dostoevsky was born here in 1821.2
  4. Brighton Birthplace of the translator Constance Garnett.3

Through time

  1. 1821Dostoevsky is born in Moscow.2
  2. 1849Dostoevsky is arrested for belonging to the Petrashevsky Circle.2
  3. 1864His brother Mikhail dies and Dostoevsky takes on his debts.1
  4. 1865In September he writes to Katkov about a young man in the grip of strange ideas.1
  5. 1866The Russian Messenger runs the novel in twelve monthly instalments.1
  6. 1914Constance Garnett publishes her translation of the novel.3

Who is in it, and behind it

Fyodor Dostoevsky author

Russian novelist born in Moscow in 1821 who spent four years in a Siberian labour camp.2

Rodion Raskolnikov character

A destitute former student who murders a pawnbroker and is tormented by his conscience.1

Sonya Marmeladova character

Daughter of a drunkard, forced into prostitution, who reads Raskolnikov the story of Lazarus.1

Porfiry Petrovich character

The detective investigating the murders, who senses that Raskolnikov is guilty.1

Svidrigailov character

Dunya's ill-intentioned former employer, who takes his own life.1

Razumikhin character

Raskolnikov's old university friend, who sees that he is seriously ill.1

Semyon Marmeladov character

A hopeless drunk whose confession moves Raskolnikov while he is still weighing the murder.1

Mikhail Katkov patron

Editor of The Russian Messenger, which published the novel in 1866.1

Constance Garnett translator

English translator of nearly all of Dostoevsky's fiction, who published this translation in 1914.3

What it is about

Extraordinary men and crime

Raskolnikov persuades himself that exceptional people may break the law, a theory the plot refutes.1

Conscience as true punishment

The book is less about legal consequences than about the torment of Raskolnikov's own conscience.1

Radicalism as a moral danger

Dostoevsky planned to examine the dangers of radical ideology in a letter to Katkov.1

Suffering and renewal

Sonya and the story of Lazarus lead toward his confession and a slow regeneration.1

In its own words

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S⁠⸺ Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K⁠⸺ bridge
Part I: I. The famous opening: Raskolnikov leaves his garret. Read on
He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat
VII. The murder scene, told through his numb hands. Read on
“Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!” he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the floor
VII. Marmeladov's death in the street. Read on
I maintain in my article that all⁠ ⁠… well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Muhammad, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed⁠—often of innocent pe
V. Raskolnikov's theory of extraordinary men. Read on
“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity,” he said wildly and walked away to the window
IV. His gesture to Sonya. Read on
“Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her.⁠ ⁠… Do you understand now?” “N-no,” Sonia whispered naively and timidly
IV. His confession of why he killed. Read on
But that is the beginning of a new story⁠—the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life
II. The epilogue turns toward renewal. Read on

The shape of the book

42 chapters, 205,234 words. Point at a bar.

How it came to be here

Dostoevsky wrote the book in debt after his brother Mikhail died in 1864. He asked the editor Mikhail Katkov for an advance, and the work began as a story and grew into a novel by late 1865. The Russian Messenger ran it in twelve monthly parts in 1866, and it later appeared as one volume. It is the first great novel of his mature period, after his exile in Siberia. The site carries Constance Garnett's translation, set in the Standard Ebooks edition.

Free to read elsewhere

Sources

  1. Crime and Punishment (Wikipedia)
  2. Fyodor Dostoevsky (Wikipedia)
  3. Constance Garnett (Wikipedia)
  4. Crime and Punishment, translated by Constance Garnett, Standard Ebooks

Text: PG 2554 | translator: Constance Garnett. CC0 (Standard Ebooks).

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