White Nights and Other Stories

Lonely and adrift, a young man—an inveterate dreamer—wanders the streets of St Petersburg during one of its endless summer nights. As he meanders through the hushed city, he encounters a young woman in distress, fending off the advances of an unwelcome stranger. He intervenes, and the two strike up a tentative connection, agreeing to meet again the following night. As their nightly conversations unfold, each revealing fragments of their inner lives, the young man finds himself falling in love with her—despite knowing almost nothing about her past, or what their brief encounter might truly mean.

A haunting meditation on urban isolation and the longing for connection, White Nights, written in 1848 shortly after The Double, is one of Dostoevsky’s most poignant early works. This volume presents it alongside the rest of his shorter fiction—including celebrated tales such as Mr. Prokharchin, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, A Gentle Creature, and Bobok—all rendered in vivid new translations by Roger Cockrell.