Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky

In 1860s Russia, Rodion Raskolnikov kills a woman in order to steal her money and improve his impoverished life. The rest of the novel follows Raskolnikov as he suffers the psychological effects of what he’s done and struggles to come to terms with the emotional and practical consequences of committing an act of murder.

Major thematic elements: crime, punishment/suffering, alienation, mortality

IB Literature and IB Language and Literature Connections

Place of publication: Russia
Language: Russian
Era: 19th Century
Genre: Fiction
Author: Male

Readers, writers and texts | Time and space | Intertextuality: Connecting texts

Identity | Culture | Creativity | Communication
Perspective | Transformation | Representation

Full text, basic summaries, and overviews

Crime and Punishment | Full text
Two resources here: the first is a PDF that can easily be printed (though at 767 pages, we’re not recommending it), but probably is best suited to photocopying extracts to work with. When printing, choose the setting that prints 2 sheets per page. The second resource is the full text via Project Gutenberg, which offers HTML, Kindle, and plain text files.
Resource 1 | Resource 2

Crime and Punishment | Full text + audio
We love this resource! The novel is broken into its chapters and each has audio with the text below it so students can read and listen at the same time. The audio is good quality, and can be sped up or slowed down as needed.
Read more

Crime and Punishment | Audiobooks
Here are two excellent versions from YouTube. We like the narrator in version 1 best, but version two is broken into a playlist and has timestamps for each chapter in the video description.
Listen to version 1 | Listen to version 2

Crime and Punishment | Spark Notes Study Guide
This study guide has full book and chapter summaries, character list, literary devices, quotes and more. We particularly like the quick chapter-by-chapter reading quizzes.
Read more

Crime and Punishment | Course Hero Study Guide
Course Hero’s study guide is also packed with good information. We particularly like the infographic and the timeline of events, listed within Chapter Summaries, and the fact that the entire study guide is also available as a series of videos on YouTube.
Study Guide | Study Guide on YouTube

Crime and Punishment | Wikipedia
In addition to the summaries and general overview of the text, we like the details under themes: an explanation of nihilism in the novel and the environment of St. Petersburg.
Read more

About the author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Biography on Britannica
This biography includes Dostoyevsky’s major works, background and early life, early works, political activity and arrest, works of the 1870s, his last decade, and legacy.
Read more

Fyodor Dostoevsky | Biography on School of Life
This biography is available in two forms: the article on School of Life’s website and as a 14-minute video on YouTube.
Read more | Watch here

Greatest Philosophers in History | Fyodor Dostoevsky | YouTube | Eternalised | 24:35
This video has 8 chapters which are time stamped and linked in the video description: Introduction, Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, The Idiot, Demons, The Brothers Karamazov, and Why You Should Read Dostoevsky.
Read more

Fyodor Dostoevsky | Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s article on Dostoevsky includes his entire life in detail, themes in and style of his writing, his legacy and major works.
Read more

Articles, essays, and videos about Crime and Punishment

Why should you read “Crime and Punishment”? - Alex Gendler | YouTube | TED-Ed | 4:45
This video gives an overview of the plot and connects its themes to a contemporary audience.
Watch here

Historical Context for Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky | Columbia.edu |
This short article gives context for the novel in three areas: historical and political context, philosophical context, and St. Petersburg.
Read more

Mapping Dostoevsky | MappingPetersburg.org
This website provides maps with markers where moments from the novel take place, showing how place and plot are interconnected.
Read more

An Analysis of Crime and Punishment | The Classic Journal | Paris Whitney
From the abstract: “What continues to make this novel memorable centuries after it was written is how Dostoevsky uses the concept of time to progress the plot and establish information, how his use of symbolism contributes to the message and meaning of the story and its characters, and how his writing has unintentionally embraced and related to different philosophies.”
Read more

The Lockdown Lessons of “Crime and Punishment” | The New Yorker | David Denby | June 2020
”A college class weathering the pandemic finds Dostoyevsky’s savage inwardness and apocalyptic feverishness uncomfortably resonant.”
Read more

Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Dostoevsky’s Complex Portrayal of Women | University of North Carolina | Michael Richard Murphy | 2009
”It would be easy to simply condemn Dostoevsky for his portrayal of women or apologize for his literary shortcomings with tired excuses that he was simply ‘a man of his time.’ But such an analysis fails to recognize the complex socio-economic, religious, and political viewpoints that Dostoevsky struggled to reconcile within his female characters. Herein lies the central paradox of Dostoevsky’s portrayal of women: he intends to use them as didactic plot elements but his commitment to crafting believable characters imbues them with the same complexity as his male characters.”
Read more

One Big Thing: Suffering as the Path to New Life in Crime and Punishment | Liberty University | Kelly Kramer | 2015
”One of the most brilliant aspects of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment is that, despite, and even through, his proliferation of characters and events, everything links together in order to form a nuanced, yet unified whole. His complex, extremely human characters are all confronted with the massive problem of suffering, and their reactions reveal enough different facets of it to piece together Dostoevsky’s perspective on it. Through the characters in his Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky argues that, although human suffering often seems arbitrary, one can become purified and redeemed by submitting to one’s suffering, particularly on another’s behalf.”
Read more

Lesson plans and other teaching resources

Schisms and Division in Crime and Punishment | EDSITEment! | NEH.gov | Lesson Plans
Three lesson plans are part of this unit: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where students do character analysis; Man and Superman, where students consider the way Dostoevsky presents humans as one of two things: ordinary and extraordinary; and Societal Schisms and Divisions, where they look at Crime and Punishment as a vivid description of societal injustice."
Read more

What’s the best translation of Crime and Punishment? | We Love Translations: World Literature in English
This article presents the translation history of Crime and Punishment, gives an overview of several of the translators and their translations, and links additional articles on the translation of the novel.
Read more

Feodor Dostoevsky | Montclair.edu | Study Guide
This page doesn’t look like much at first, but it has some nice background information, insight to the names of characters, and towards the middle of the page, suggestions for passages to use for close literary analysis, and further down, interpretive questions.
Read more

Crime and Punishment: Summary and Study Guide | Middlebury.edu
Scroll to the bottom of the page for the section STUDY TOPICS. Seven questions are listed that would be great for group work, seminars, or essay prompts.
Read more

IB Literature 12 - Summer Assignment | Caroline Lamagna
This assignment is formatted for students and includes a biography of Dostoevsky, historical context of Crime and Punishment, and a reading guide with questions for each chapter.
Read more

Senior Honors English - Rohlfs | Crime and Punishment Essay Topics
This PDF offers nine essay prompts on a variety of topics relevant to Crime and Punishment.
Read more

Shopping List

Texts and other resources you may find helpful.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Crime and Punishment 
Translated by Constance Garnett
Paperback on Amazon.com
Crime and Punishment 
Norton Critical Editions
Paperback on Amazon.com
Crime and Punishment 
Translated by Oliver Ready 
Paperback on Amazon.com
Crime and Punishment 
Translated by Roger Cockrell
Paperback on Amazon.com
An Eye for an Eye: A Global History of Crime and Punishment
Hardcover on Amazon.com
Approaches to Teaching Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment
Paperback on Amazon.com
Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia
Hardcover on Amazon.com
Paperback on Amazon.com
Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment": 
A Reader's Guide
Paperback on Amazon.com