Crime and Punishment

HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.

'Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?'

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov – an impoverished student drop-out and amateur philosopher – callously murders a pawnbroker in the slums of St Petersburg. Pursued by the law and his own ravaged conscience, Dostoyevsky’s iconic anti-hero spirals into crisis as the noose tightens, and everything he thought he knew about morality and sin is corrupted by his hideous act of violence.

In this psychological masterpiece of good and evil, Dostoyevsky questions what murder does to the soul and whether redemption is possible. One of the great works of world literature, Crime and Punishment is an epic of human nature, guilt and salvation.

Here in translation by Constance Garnett.