'40,000 francs, which lay before him in a heap of gold and banknotes.' Written in twenty-six days to pay off Dostoyevsky's own roulette debts, The Gambler is a graphic psychological study of addic

Inspired by Dostoevsky’s own gambling addiction and written under pressure in order to pay off his creditors and retain his rights to his literary legacy, The Gambler is set in the casino of the fict

The civil servant Ivan Matveich and his wife Yelena Ivanovna are spectators of an exhibition – in a shopping arcade – of a crocodile owned by a German, when Ivan is suddenly swallowed alive by the an

Michael Wood's selection of Dostoevsky's shorter works is drawn from the timeless translations of Constance Garnett whose work, he says in his preface, gives readers the best of several worlds.