The Double: A Petersburg Poem

Written by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Narrated by LibriVox Community

This is the story of a mild-mannered civil servant, Mr. Golyadkin, who begins to see his "doppelganger" appearing in his life (at work, in society, etc). This "double" has all the qualities that the protagonist lacks. His "double" bullies and persecutes him, slowly taking his place in the world. As the story progresses what could have been a true "double" is revealed to the reader as being Mr. Golyadkin's own mind splitting from reality. It is a haunting and tragic tale. (Summary by Greg Giordano)

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian author and journalist. He spent four years in prison, endured forced military service and was nearly executed for the crime of reading works forbidden by the government. He battled a gambling addiction that once left him a beggar, and he suffered ill health, including epileptic seizures. Despite these challenges, Dostoevsky wrote fiction possessed of groundbreaking, even daring, social and psychological insight and power. Novels like Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov, have won the author acclaim from figures ranging from Franz Kafka to Ernest Hemingway, Friedrich Nietzsche to Virginia Woolf.