Two of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's shorter works, Notes from Underground and The Double, are brought together in this edition for an intensive exploration of human consciousness. Translated by Ronald Wilks, with an introduction by Robert Louis Jackson.

Alienated from society and paralyzed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in society's 'anthill' and his gradual withdrawal into an existence 'underground'.

In The Double, the seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality when a government clerk encounters a man who looks exactly like him—his double, perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this work is a masterful tragicomic study of human consciousness.

Ronald Wilks's extraordinary translation is accompanied by an introduction by Robert Louis Jackson, who discusses these pivotal works in the context of Dostoyevsky's life and times. This edition also includes a chronology, bibliography, table of ranks, and notes on each work.