This book, written in 1864, is the first and most peculiar of Dostoevsky's masterpieces and at the same time a precursor to all the works that followed. It marks a critical turning point as it foreshadows the moral, political, and social ideas that he would monumentally explore in Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Demons. Departing from the established way of writing in unprecedented ways, this classic novel speaks to us about the "escape" from society and the "descent" into the underworld - Underground - of a 19th-century Russian official. "I am a sick man... I am a wicked man," the book's anonymous hero desperately cries out. And from the "Underground" emerges the passionate confession of a suffering man. This merciless self-criticism has highlighted one of the greatest anti-heroes in World Literature.