Crime and Punishment

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

With the same suppleness, energy, and range of voices that won their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize, Pevear and Volokhonsky offer a brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's classic novel that presents a clear insight into this astounding psychological thriller. The best (translation) currently available--Washington Post Book World.

Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03/02/1993
Pages: 624
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780679734505

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 8.7
Point Value: 40
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 703 / Crime and Punishment (Unabridged)


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/22/1993

About the Author
Fyodor 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, Poor Folk (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.

His 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 Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868-69), The Possessed (1871-72), and The Brothers Karamazov (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.