In St. Petersburg in 1865, Raskolnikov, a young dark and haughty noble, reserved but also generous, interrupted his studies for lack of money. In debt...

In St. Petersburg in 1865, Raskolnikov, a young dark and haughty noble, reserved but also generous, interrupted his studies for lack of money. In debt to his landlady who allows him a narrow attic, he feels crushed by his poverty. But he thinks himself also called to a great future, and, disdainful of moral law, thinks himself justified in committing a crime, which he plans to do soon. Published in eight deliveries by The Russian Messenger in 1866, Dostoevsky’s novel shows Raskolnikov a witness to the misery, alcoholism and prostitution that the author describes without veils, a criminal who also knows too well why he has become such. Tragedy does not exclude the vision of a luminous life, however, and the punishment of his crime will allow him a long journey to the truth, and the renunciation of his brutal melancholy.