Publisher's Synopsis
The other shorter tales in this volume comprise 'The Landlady' and 'The Gentle Maiden'. All belong to the earlier period of his work and the influence of earlier writers is quite perceptible,  especially that of Balzac and Gogol.  Between the writing of these two shorter works, however, and the appearance of 'Letters from the Underworld' there intervened a period of seven years' exile in Siberia,  four of which were spent as a convict in the penal settlement at Omsk.  'The Letters' represent the artistic culmination of this first period in Dostoevsky's  career;  they are central to his whole creative output and mark the transition from a dreamy humanitarian idealism to the tragic power of his full maturity.  His main theme now becomes a problem of human liberty and the justification of God's will -  the theme in fact which was to dominate the great works of his final phase such as ' The Idiot' and 'The Brothers Karamazov'.
 
Everyman's Library; 1957. A 1957 reprint of the 1913 issuance. A single Everyman's Library volume presenting the three shorter tales by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Letter from the Underworld, The Gentle maiden and The Landlady. Translated and with an introduction by C.J.Hogarth. Everyman's Library  No. 654. Full red cloth-covered boards with spine titling and "EL" in script at tail of spine in gilt.  Orabge dust jacket with "Everyman's Library" surrounded by scrollwork to front panel. A good copy- binding tight- slightly forward leaning. Jacket has a couple of small tears. Jacket is sunned to spine. EL end papers. Rear of FFEP has previous owners name and date.  ix, 308 pp. Preowned. No ISBN.