In these stories Dostoevsky explores both the figure of the dreamer divorced from reality and his own ambiguous attitude to utopianism, themes central to many of his great novels.

In White Nights the apparent idyll of the dreamer's romantic fantasies disguises profound loneliness and estrangement from reality. A Gentle Creature and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man show how such a withdrawal into the world of the imagination can end in spiritual desolation and moral indifference and how, in Dostoevsky's view, the tragedy of the alienated individual can be resolved only by rediscovering a sense of compassion and responsibility towards fellow human beings.

Contents:

• A Gentle Creature
• White Nights
• The Dream of a Ridiculous Man