Franklin Library: F DOSTOEVSKY: NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND: GAMBLER: POOR PEOPLE

Description: Franklin Library leather edition of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Stories," Translated by Constance Garnett, Frontispiece portrait of Dostoevsky by Walter Brooks, a Limited edition, one of the COLLECTED STORIES OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST WRITERS series, published in 1979. Bound in burgundy leather, the book has ivory moire silk end leaves, hubbed spine, a satin book marker, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, gold gilding on three edge---in FINE condition. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, who lived from 1821-1881, was born in MOSCOW, where his father had been a soldier during Napoleon's invasion. For his services, the Czar appointed his father superintendent of a large state hospital in Moscow. Fyodor was sent to St. Petersburg at age sixteen to the School of Military Engineers, but after completing his studies in six years, he resigned his commission and decided to become a writer. This handsome volume has three stories: "Notes from the Underground" which opens with the line: "I am a sick man. . .I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. . . .I have been going on ike that for a long time---twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. . ." "Notes" presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy. The second part of the book is called "Apropos of the Wet Snow" and describes certain events that appear to be destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator and anti-hero. "The Gambler," a short novel, reflects Dostoevsky's own addiction to roulette; indeed, Dostoevsky completed the novella in 1866 under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts. The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of ALEXI IVANOVICH, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is indebted to the Frenchman de Griers and has mortgaged his property in Russia to pay only a small amount of his debt. Upon learning of the illness of his wealthy aunt, "Grandmother," he sends streams of telegrams to Moscow and awaits the news of her demise. His expected inheritance will pay his debts and gain Mademoiselle Blanche de Cominges's hand in marriage. Alexei is hopelessly in love with POLINA, the General's niece. She asks him to go to the town's casino and place a bet for her. After hesitations, he succumbs and ends up winning at the roulette table. He returns to her the winnings but she will not tell him the reason she needs money. She only laughs in his face (as she does when he professes his love) and treats him with cold indifference, if not downright malice. He only learns the details of the General's and Polina's financial state later in the story through his long-time acquaintance, Mr. Astley. Astley is a shy Englishman who seems to share Alexei's fondness of Polina. He comes from English nobility and has a good deal of money. The third work, "Poor People," is the story of Varvara Dobroselova and Makar Devushkin second cousins twice-removed. They live across from each other on the same street in terrible apartments. Devushkin's, for example, is merely a portioned-off section of the kitchen, and he lives with several other tenants, such as the Gorshkovs, whose son groans in agonizing hunger almost the entire story. Devushkin and Dobroselova exchange letters attesting to their terrible living conditions and the former frequently squanders his money on gifts for her. Dobroselova originally lived in the country, but moved to St. Petersburg (which she hates) when her father lost his job. Her father becomes very violent and her mother severely depressed. Her father dies and they move in with Anna Fyodorovna, a landlady who was previously cruel to them but at least pretends to feel sympathy for their situation. Dobroselova is tutored by a poor student named Pokrovsky, whose drunken father occasionally visits. She eventually falls in love with Pokrovsky. She struggles to save a measly amount of money to purchase the complete works of PUSKKIN at the market for his birthday present, then allows his father to give the books to him instead, claiming that just knowing he received the books will be enough for her happiness. Pokrovsky falls ill soon after, and his dying wish is to see the sun and the world outside. 476 pages. I offer Combined shipping.

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End Time: 2024-11-30T03:54:35.000Z

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