Crime and Punishment

"Crime and Punishment has upon most readers an impact as immediate and obvious and full as the news of murder next door," wrote critic R. P. Blackmur. "One almost participates in the crime.., it is the murder that only by some saving accident we did not ourselves commit." In the whole literature of the ambivalent relationship between man and the crimes of which he is capable, Crime and Punishment stands supreme for its insight, compassion, and psychological fidelity. The story of the murder committed by Raskolnikov and his guilt and atonement is without doubt the most gripping and illuminating account ever written of a crime of repugnance and despair and the consequences that inevitably arise from it. "Dostoevsky''s novels... leap out of their historical situation and confront us as if they had not yet spoken their final word," said award-winning Russian translator Richard Pevear. And The Washington Post Book World deemed Dostoevsky "the most compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great."