Crime and Punishment
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Authors: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOYEVSKY
was born in Moscow in 1821, the second of a physician's seven children. When he left his private boarding school in Moscow he studied from 1838 to 1843 at the Military Engineering College in St Petersburg, graduating with officer's rank. His first story to be published,
Poor Folk
(1846), was a great success. In 1849 he was arrested and sentenced to death for participating in the ‘Petrashevsky circle’; he was reprieved at the last moment but sentenced to penal servitude, and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison at Omsk, Siberia. Out of this experience he wrote
The House of the Dead
(1860). In 1860 he began the review
Vremya
(
Time
) with his brother; in 1862 and 1863 he went abroad, where he strengthened his anti-European outlook, met Mlle Suslova, who was the model for many of his heroines, and gave way to his passion for gambling. In the following years he fell deeply in debt, but in 1867 he married Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina (his second wife), who helped to rescue him from his financial morass. They lived abroad for four years, then in 1873 he was invited to edit
Grazhdanin
(
The Citizen
), to which he contributed his
Diary of a Writer
. From 1876 the latter was issued separately and had a large circulation. In 1880 he delivered his famous address at the unveiling of Pushkin's memorial in Moscow; he died six months later in 1881. Most of his important works were written after 1864:
Notes from Underground
(1864),
Crime and Punishment
(1865–6),
The Gambler
(1866),
The Idiot
(1868),
The Devils
(1871) and
The Brothers Karamazov
(1880).
DAVID MCDUFF
was born in 1945 and was educated at the University of Edinburgh. His publications comprise a large number of translations of foreign verse and prose, including poems by Joseph Brodsky and Tomas Venclova, as well as contemporary Scandinavian work;
Selected Poems
of Osip Mandelstam;
Complete Poems
of Edith Sodergran; and
No I
'
m Not Afraid
by Irina Ratushinskaya. His first book of verse,
Words in Nature
, appeared in 1972. He has translated a number of nineteenth-century Russian prose works for the Penguin Classics series. These include Dostoyevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov
,
The House of the Dead
,
Poor Folk and Other Stories
and
The Idiot
(forthcoming), Tolstoy's The
Kreutzer
Sonata and Other Stories and The Sebastopol Sketches
, and Nikolai Leskov's
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
. He has also translated Babel's
Collected Stories
and Bely's
Petersburg
for Penguin.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
Crime and Punishment
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
DAVID McDUFF
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
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This translation first published by Viking 1991
Published in Penguin Classics 1991
Reissued with revisions 2003
1
Translation and editorial material copyright © David McDuff, 1991, 2003
All rights reserved
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
978-0-141-90835-9
Chronology
1821
Born Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, in Moscow, the son of Mikhail Andreyevich, head physician at Marlinsky Hospital for the Poor, and Marya Fyodorovna, daughter of a merchant family.
1823
Pushkin's
Eugene Onegin
.
1825
Decembrist uprising.
1830
Revolt in the Polish provinces.
1831–6
Attends boarding schools in Moscow together with his brother Mikhail (b. 1820).
1837
Pushkin is killed in a duel.
Their mother dies and the brothers are sent to a preparatory school in St Petersburg.
1838
Enters the St Petersburg Academy of Military Engineers as an army cadet (Mikhail is not admitted to the Academy).
1839
Father dies, apparently murdered by his serfs on his estate.
1840
Lermontov's
A Hero of Our Time
.
1841
Obtains a commission. Early works, now lost, include two historical plays, ‘Mary Stuart’ and ‘Boris Godunov’.
1842
Gogol's
Dead Souls
.
Promoted to second lieutenant.
1843
Graduates from the Academy. Attached to St Petersburg Army Engineering Corps. Translates Balzac's
Eugénie Grandet
.
1844
Resigns his commission. Translates George Sand's
La dernière Aldini
. Works on
Poor Folk
, his first novel.
1845
Establishes a friendship with Russia's most prominent and influential literary critic, the liberal Vissarion Belinsky, who praises
Poor Folk
and acclaims its author as Gogol's successor.
1846
Poor Folk
and
The Double
published. While
Poor Folk
is widely praised,
The Double
is much less successful. ‘Mr Prokharchin’ also published. Utopian socialist M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky becomes an acquaintance.
1847
Nervous ailments and the onset of epilepsy.
A Novel in Nine Letters
published, with a number of short stories including ‘The Landlady’, ‘Polzunkov’, ‘White Nights’ and ‘A Weak Heart’.
1848
Several short stories published, including ‘A Jealous Husband’ and ‘A Christmas Tree Party and a Wedding’.
1849
Netochka Nezvanova
published. Arrested and convicted of political offences against the Russian state. Sentenced to death, and taken out to Semyonovsky Square to be shot by firing squad, but reprieved moments before execution. Instead, sentenced to an indefinite period of exile in Siberia, to begin with eight years of penal servitude, later reduced to four years by Tsar Nicholas I.
1850
Prison and hard labour in Omsk, western Siberia.
1853
Outbreak of Crimean War.
Beginning of periodic epileptic seizures.
1854
Released from prison, but immediately sent to do compulsory military service as a private in the Seventh Line infantry battalion at Semipalatinsk, south-western Siberia. Friendship with Baron Wrangel, as a result of which he meets his future wife, Marya Dmitriyevna Isayeva.
1855
Alexander II succeeds Nicholas I as Tsar: some relaxation of state censorship.
Promoted to non-commissioned officer.
1856
Promoted to lieutenant. Still forbidden to leave Siberia.
1857
Marries the widowed Marya Dmitriyevna.
1858
Works on
The Village of Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants
and ‘Uncle's Dream’.
1859
Allowed to return to live in European Russia; in December, the Dostoyevskys return to St Petersburg. First chapters of
The Village of Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants
(the serialized novella is released between 1859 and 1861) and ‘Uncle's Dream’ published.
1860
Vladivostok is founded.
Mikhail starts a new literary journal,
Vremya
(
Time
). Dostoyevsky is not officially an editor, because of his convict status. First two chapters of
The House of the Dead
published.
1861
Emancipation of serfs. Turgenev's
Fathers and Sons
.
Vremya
begins publication.
The Insulted and the Injured
and
A Silly Story
published in
Vremya
. First part of
The House of the Dead
published.
1862
Second part of
The House of the Dead
and
A Nasty Tale
published in
Vremya
. Makes first trip abroad, to Europe, including England, France and Switzerland. Meets Alexander Herzen in London.
1863
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
published in
Vremya
. After Marya Dmitriyevna is taken seriously ill, travels abroad again. Begins liaison with Apollinaria Suslova.
1864
First part of Tolstoy's
War and Peace
.
In March with Mikhail founds the journal
Epokha
(
Epoch
) as successor to
Vremya
, now banned by the Russian authorities.
Notes from Underground
published in
Epokha
. In April death of Marya Dmitriyevna. In July death of Mikhail.
1865
Epokha
ceases publication because of lack of funds.
An Unusual Happening
published. Suslova rejects his proposal of marriage. Gambles in Wiesbaden. Works on
Crime and Punishment
.
1866
Dmitry Karakozov attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II.
The Gambler
and
Crime and Punishment
published.
1867
Alaska is sold by Russia to the United States for $7,200,000.
Marries his nineteen-year-old stenographer, Anna Grigoryevna Snitkina, and they settle in Dresden.
1868
Birth of daughter, Sofia, who dies only five months old.
The Idiot
published.
1869
Birth of daughter, Lyubov.
1870
V. I. Lenin is born in the town of Simbirsk, on the banks of the Volga.
The Eternal Husband
published.
1871
Moves back to St Petersburg with his wife and family. Birth of son, Fyodor.
1871–2
Serial publication of
The Devils
.
1873
First
khozdenie v narod
(‘To the People’ movement). Becomes contributing editor of conservative weekly journal
Grazhdanin
(
The Citizen
), where his
Diary of a Writer
is published as a regular column. ‘Bobok’ published.
1874
Arrested and imprisoned again, for offences against the political censorship regulations.
1875
A Raw Youth
published. Birth of son, Aleksey.
1877
‘The Gentle Creature’ and ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’ published in
Grazhdanin
.
1878
Death of Aleksey. Works on
The Brothers Karamazov
.
1879
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (later known as Stalin) born in Gori, Georgia.
First part of
The Brothers Karamazov
published.
1880
The Brothers Karamazov
published (in complete form). Anna starts a book service, where her husband's works may be ordered by mail. Speech in Moscow at the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin is greeted with wild enthusiasm.