The front cover of the hardcover edition. Matte cloth boards, printed art.
The AI margin notes sit beside the text, not in a popup over it.
560 pages of ivory paper, sewn spine. It stands up on its own.
Your free digital copy on your phone. The app is coming to iOS and Android.
A former student decides one murder can be justified if the arithmetic of good adds up. He commits it on page sixty. The remaining five hundred pages are what the arithmetic failed to cover.
Want it in another language? Write to us. We prepare the translation by hand and print that hardcover for you in 1–2 weeks. Your free digital copy is unlocked to your account the moment you order.
The hardcover is printed in the one you pick here. Its free digital copy carries both editions, so you can switch mid-chapter as you read.
Included with the subscription, which is coming soon. It will cover this recording and 100+ more audiobooks.
In stock. At your door in 1–2 days.
The same 1866 opening, three ways to take it. Tap an underlined line. The note that appears comes from Hermes, the built-in AI guide that explains the difficult lines.
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
tap an underlined line to open its AI note ↑
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.
tap an underlined line to open its AI note ↑
One very hot evening at the start of July, a young man and walked slowly, almost unwillingly, toward the K. bridge.
tap an underlined line to open its AI note ↑
One price, or one subscription (coming soon). Every hardcover, this book and every other in our catalog, includes its digital edition free.
The printed book, digital edition included
Included with the subscription, coming soon
Want a book we do not stock, or a language we have not set yet? Ask us for a price on any book.
Your free digital copy will also open in the Roman Reads app, coming to iOS and Android.
Petersburg, one murderous July. Rodion Raskolnikov, twenty-three, brilliant and behind on rent, has a theory: certain extraordinary people are permitted to step over the moral line, provided the arithmetic of the greater good works out. An old pawnbroker nobody would miss sits on the other side of that line. The theory survives contact with the axe. Raskolnikov does not.
What follows is not a detective story, because you watch the crime happen. It is a manhunt conducted inside one skull. A magistrate who interrogates by small talk. A sister about to marry a man everyone despises for money her brother refuses to take. And Sonia, who owns almost nothing and still manages to give things away. Dostoevsky wrote it broke and against deadline, and it reads like it: urgent, overheated, impossible to put down politely.
It is long, Russian, and carries a reputation for difficulty. The names alone have defeated honest readers for a century, which is exactly what the notes in the margin, and the voice reading it aloud, are for.
Sentenced to death at 27 for belonging to a book club.
The execution was theatre, and the reprieve had been signed for days. Four years in a Siberian prison camp followed, with one book permitted. He wrote this novel afterward: broke, epileptic, gambling badly, dictating at speed to the stenographer he later married. It is not a tidy book. That is largely the point.
Read the full biography41 readers were given advance copies in exchange for an honest review. No stars were purchased.
Finished in 11 days. I had abandoned this book twice before. The difference was the AI notes in the margin. Part Three is where I usually stop, and they kept explaining why everyone was shouting.
Bought the hardcover for the shelf and ended up reading the whole thing in the free digital edition at 1 a.m. The printed copy is better made than my university textbooks, which is a low bar it clears by a lot.
Simplified is honest. It shortens the sentences, not the story. Svidrigailov is still disturbing. One star held back because I wanted the notes to argue with me more, not less.
I listened to most of it on the way to work. There is a scene where Sonia reads aloud. I stopped on the stairs and stood there for a while. The note under that line knew exactly why.
Delivery took four days. The book has since survived a rickshaw, a hostel, and my roommate borrowing it without asking. The binding held. He is buying his own copy.
Original if you want Dostoevsky’s sentences intact; Simplified if long sentences are what stop you. Your free digital copy carries both, so you can switch mid-chapter. The hardcover is printed in the one edition you choose when you order.
Short notes in plain words, attached to the exact lines readers get stuck on: who this character is, why this sentence matters, what just quietly happened. They come from Hermes, the built-in AI guide; ask it for a chapter, or the whole book, and it answers at that size. Two are running in the sample above; tap an underlined line.
Yes. In the audiobook you pick the narrator, and the read-along lights each line as it’s spoken. You can change the voice mid-book. Audiobooks come with the subscription, which is coming soon.
Original and Simplified are ready now. For anything else, write to us with the language you want. We prepare that translation by hand and print the hardcover for you, which takes 1–2 weeks.
No, it isn’t sold on its own. Every hardcover in our catalog, this one included, brings its digital edition free. It unlocks to your account the moment your order is placed and sits in your library, notes and reading position synced. The sample above is the same text, if you want to try before you order.
Yes. It is free with every hardcover, for every book in our catalog. It is ready in your account the moment you order, so you can start reading tonight while the printed copy makes its one to two days to your door. One purchase, both copies. That’s the free line on your order summary.
In one to two days. Every book in the catalogue is already printed, sewn and cased, sitting on a shelf, so ordering one starts the delivery rather than the printing. Both editions, Original and Simplified, are stocked. Only a language we have to set by hand is made for you, and that takes 1–2 weeks; you can ask us about it. Your digital copy is in your account the whole time, so there is nothing to wait for to start reading.
Both editions ship from stock and reach you in 1–2 days. A language we set by hand is made for you and takes 1–2 weeks. Cash on delivery either way, and shipping is free over Rs 3,000.
It isn’t sold on its own. The subscription, which is coming soon, will cover this recording, 100+ more audiobooks, and reading aloud any PDF you upload. Your listening place is saved, and you can switch between listening and reading without losing the line.
Seven days, any reason, as long as the hardcover can still be shelved as new. The digital copy it brought stays in your app either way. We would rather you read something else than resent this.
Every one arrives the same way: a hardcover from stock in 1–2 days, its digital edition free, AI notes in the margin on the difficult lines. Browse every book.
Undecided? Page one is still up there, free to read, in all three versions.