The two novels of inner turmoil brought together here mark a turning point for Dostoyevsky, and are among his most personally revealing.
The anonymous narrator of Notes from Underground (1864) tells of his refusal to become a worker in the "ant-hill" of society and of his gradual withdrawal to an underground existence.
A classic study of human breakdown, The Double (1846) tells of a man haunted by his double-or is it just the fearful side of his own nature? Both are universal testaments of human despair, made vibrant in masterly new translations.
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