Crime and Punishment

First published in 1866, this novel follows Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished former student in St Petersburg, who murders an old pawnbroker and her sister and then lives with the deed. He tells himself the killing is a test of whether an extraordinary man may step over the law. The investigation of Porfiry Petrovich, the meek Sonya Marmeladova, Raskolnikov's mother and sister, and the sensual Svidrigailov close in as his theory and his nerves fail. The book is a psychological crime novel: a city of garrets and police, and an argument about guilt that the murderer cannot finish.

Quarter bound in red cloth, white cloth boards with an enlargement of one of Brockway's wood-engravings in black. White flecked endleaves. Dark green slipcase.