Salle de lecture

Poor Folk

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky's first novel, in letters: the correspondence between Makar Devushkin, a poor, ageing copying clerk, and Varvara Dobroselova, an orphan he protects with more tenderness than means. Heir to Gogol's The Overcoat, it adds something new: the wounded dignity and inner life of the humble man, told in his own words. Belinsky hailed it as the birth of a great writer.