It is the time of the White Nights, when darkness never quite falls over Saint Petersburg. The narrator, a young man and lonesome dreamer, wanders through the quiet summer evenings, emptied of their usual bustle. One night he encounters a distraught girl, seventeen-year-old Nastenka. They strike up a conversation that continues over the course of four evenings, as they tell each other about their lives, their dreams, hopes, and sorrows. From this chance meeting a tender love begins to grow. But Nastenka's heart belongs to someone else.

Dostoevsky's novella, one of the most celebrated love stories in world literature, is presented here in the classic translation by Constance Garnett. The volume is accompanied by distinctive illustrations by Stella Dreis.

Autorentext
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow and died on February 9, 1881, in St. Petersburg. He came from an impoverished noble family; his father was a physician. After the death of his mother in 1837, Dostoevsky moved to St. Petersburg with his brother Mikhail, where he studied civil engineering at the Military Academy from 1838 to 1843. In 1844 he began work on his debut novel Poor Folk, published in 1846. This novel, together with The Double, which also appeared in 1846, brought him immediate and widespread acclaim. Among his major works are the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Dostoevsky is a central representative of Realism within Russian literature and is considered, alongside Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, the greatest Russian writer.