Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Poor Folk and Other Stories

With their penetrating psychological insight and their emphasis on human dignity, respect and forgiveness, Dostoyevsky's early short stories contain the seeds of the themes that came to his major novels. Poor Folk, the author's first great literary triumph, is the story of a tragic relationship between an impoverished copy clerk and a young seamstress, told through their passionate letters to each other. In The Landlady Dostoyevsky portrays a dreamer hero who is captivated by a curious couple and becomes their lodger. Mr Prokharchin, inspired by a true story, is a sly comedy centring on an eccentric miser, and Polzunkov is a powerful character sketch which, in common with the other tales in this volume, questions the very nature of existence.

This is the first new translation of Dostoevsky's first novel since Constance Garnett's. Mr. Dessaix is not only more accurate than Garnett, but also makes an effort to deal with the sharply different styles in the epistolary novel in a consistent way. Dostoevsky made a point of saying that the style of the work was not his, but that of his letter writers–Devushkin and Varvara–and the reader will now be able to get some idea of these different styles. The translator's introduction focuses on the history of styles which Dostoevsky used in his very selfconsciously literary debut.

Written in 1845 and publised in 1846, Poor Folk is the natural beginning point for anyone who reads Dostoevsky. The novel occupies a position of particular interest and importance in both the history of Russian literature and Dostoevsky's work as a whole. Several lines of development in Russian prose intersect: sentimentalism, naturalism, the physiological sketch, and the phenomenon of Gogol, with whom Dostoevsky maintains a dialogue throughout the novel.

Robert Dessaix is the translator of The Mysterious Tales of Ivan Turgenev. He is Professor of Russian literature at the University of New South Wales.