White Nights and Other Stories

Feeling alone and abandoned by everyone, a young man and self-confessed dreamer decides to take to the streets of St Petersburg during one of its long summer nights. As he roams around the empty city, he chances on a weeping girl, whom he approaches and rescues from the unwanted attentions of an importunate gentleman. The two agree to meet again the following night on the same spot, and as they start revealing their life story to each other, the young man cannot resist falling in love with his new acquaintance.

A quintessential tale of urban solitude and the desperate need for human contact, White Nights, a novella written in 1848, soon after The Double, is accompanied in this volume by the rest of Dostoevsky’s shorter fiction, including famous stories such as ‘Mr Prokharchin’, ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’, ‘A Gentle Creature’ and ‘The Crocodile’ – all presented in sparkling new translations by Roger Cockrell.

List of Stories: The Landlady, Mr Prokharchin, A Novel in Nine Letters, Another Man’s Wife and a Husband Under the Bed, A Weak Heart, Polzunkov, An Honest Thief, A Christmas Tree and a Wedding, White Nights, A Little Hero, A Nasty Story, Bobok, The Heavenly Christmas Tree, The Peasant Marei, A Gentle Creature, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

About the Author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-81) was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. His most famous work includes Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. He is considered to be one of Europe's major novelists.

Roger Cockrell is Honorary Fellow in Russian at the University of Exeter, UK. His publciations include a translation of Fadeev's the Rout, also in this series; an edition of Bulgakov's White Guard and (as co-author) The Voice of a Giant: Essays on Seven Russian Prose Classics.