Five Dostoevsky titles are here, from White Nights in 1848 to The Brothers Karamazov in 1880, and the length range is enormous: 44,000 words to 349,000.
The usual advice is to start with Crime and Punishment, but that is an eleven-hour commitment. Notes from the Underground is the shorter way into the same voice.
Dostoevsky’s five works here run from 1848 to 1880 and from 44,161 to 349,000 words, which is his whole career: the early Petersburg stories, the return from penal servitude, and the four great novels. Notes from Underground (1864) is the hinge, short and sour, and the book in which the later novels become possible.
The arithmetic is blunt. Crime and Punishment is about eleven hours, The Idiot fourteen and The Brothers Karamazov nineteen, while Notes from Underground is under three. If you are not yet sure you want to spend a fortnight in his company, start with the underground man; if you are, Crime and Punishment is the door the rest of the world uses.
Start here: Notes from the Underground. At 44,161 words, about two hours, it is a monologue from a narrator who argues with himself for the whole book, and it contains the argument that the four big novels dramatise.
Fyodor Dostoevsky: which book first
Every Fyodor Dostoevsky title on editions.ink, with the reading time for each. The first row is the one to start with.
| Book | Year | Words | Read time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notes from the Underground — start here | 1864 | 44,161 | 2 h |
| White Nights | 1848 | 118,526 | 7 h |
| Crime and Punishment | 1866 | 204,000 | 11 h |
| The Idiot | 1869 | 244,604 | 14 h |
| The Brothers Karamazov | 1880 | 349,000 | 19 h |
| All five | 960,291 | 53 h |
What to read after the first one
- Crime and Punishment — the one to read next, and the most accessible of the long books
- White Nights — a short, sentimental early story, and the gentlest thing he wrote
If you would rather see the whole shelf in chronological order first, the Fyodor Dostoevsky books in order page lists every title by publication year with the same word counts. The Fyodor Dostoevsky author page collects all the editions in one place,, and the author index has the other writers on the site. If you want a follow-up by a different author, the read next guide pairs ten classics with what to read after them.
Questions readers ask
Which Dostoevsky book should I read first?
Notes from the Underground (1864, 44,161 words) is the shortest entry point. Crime and Punishment is the usual first long novel, at 204,000 words.
How long is The Brothers Karamazov?
349,000 words, about nineteen hours of reading, the longest book on this shelf by this author.
Are these Dostoevsky editions free?
Yes, complete DRM-free downloads; the page for each book lists the translation the text came from.