{"product_id":"notes-from-underground-introduction-by-richard-pevear-9781400041916","title":"Notes from Underground: Introduction by Richard Pevear","description":"\u003cp\u003eDostoevsky's most revolutionary novel, \u003ci\u003eNotes from Underground\u003c\/i\u003e marks the dividing line between nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, and between the visions of self each century embodied. One of the most remarkable characters in literature, the unnamed narrator is a former official who has defiantly withdrawn into an underground existence. In full retreat from society, he scrawls a passionate, obsessive, self-contradictory narrative that serves as a devastating attack on social utopianism and an assertion of man's essentially irrational nature. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRichard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose Dostoevsky translations have become the standard, give us a brilliantly faithful edition of this classic novel, conveying all the tragedy and tormented comedy of the original.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky's life was as dark and dramatic as the great novels he wrote. He was born in Moscow in 1821. A short first novel, \u003ci\u003ePoor Folk \u003c\/i\u003e(1846) brought him instant success, but his writing career was cut short by his arrest for alleged subversion against Tsar Nicholas I in 1849. In prison he was given the \"silent treatment\" for eight months (guards even wore velvet soled boots) before he was led in front a firing squad. Dressed in a death shroud, he faced an open grave and awaited execution, when suddenly, an order arrived commuting his sentence. He then spent four years at hard labor in a Siberian prison, where he began to suffer from epilepsy, and he returned to St. Petersburg only a full ten years after he had left in chains. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis prison experiences coupled with his conversion to a profoundly religious philosophy formed the basis for his great novels. But it was his fortuitous marriage to Anna Snitkina, following a period of utter destitution brought about by his compulsive gambling, that gave Dostoevsky the emotional stability to complete \u003ci\u003eCrime and Punishment \u003c\/i\u003e(1866), \u003ci\u003eThe Idiot\u003c\/i\u003e (1868-69), \u003ci\u003e The Possessed \u003c\/i\u003e(1871-72), and \u003ci\u003eThe Brothers Karamazov \u003c\/i\u003e(1879-80). When Dostoevsky died in 1881, he left a legacy of masterworks that influenced the great thinkers and writers of the Western world and immortalized him as a giant among writers of world literature.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50649950552338,"sku":"9781400041916","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6507651a-25bc-4db1-acc9-9e1623614579.jpg?v=1733278418","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/notes-from-underground-introduction-by-richard-pevear-9781400041916","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}