©2025 Fable Group Inc.
4.0 

A Bad Business

By Fyodor Dostoevsky & Nicolas Pasternak &
A Bad Business by Fyodor Dostoevsky & Nicolas Pasternak &  digital book - Fable

Why read on Fable?

Discover social reading

Chat inside the ebook with emojis, comments and more

Annotate with notes, tabs, and highlights

Share or keep your notes private with our annotation features

Support the World Literacy Foundation

We donate 20% of every book sale to help children learn to read

Publisher Description

A stunning new edition featuring fresh translations of six of this classic Russian writer's most thrilling short stories in a beautiful Pushkin Collection edition.

This vivid collection of new translations by Nicolas Pasternak Slater and Maya Slater illuminates Dostoevsky's dazzling versatility as a writer.
 
His remarkable short fiction swings from wickedly sharp humour to gripping psychological intensity, from cynical social mockery to moments of unexpected tenderness.
 
The stories in this collection range from impossible fantasy to scorching satire.
  • A civil servant finds a new passion for his work when he's swallowed alive by a crocodile.
  • A struggling writer stumbles on a cemetery where the dead still talk to each other.
  • An arrogant but well-intentioned gentleman provokes an uproar at an aide's wedding, and in the marital bed.
  • A young boy finds unexpected salvation on a cold and desolate Christmas Eve.
  • 13 Reviews

    4.0
    “My first Dostoyevsky. It was a wild ride. A Bad Business: Fantastic! It starts out utterly hilarious and then gets fairly grim/sad. Five Star! Conversations in a Graveyard: Political satire. Pretty comical. Three Star. The Crocodile: This was the story I was most looking forward to reading. But, the themes were likely a big too over my head. Three Star. A Meek Creature: Tragic! Four Star. The Heavenly Christmas Tree: Even more tragic!!! Two Star. The Peasant Marey: A short story with a lesson. Three Star.”

    About Fyodor Dostoevsky

    Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821. Renowned as a writer and journalist during his lifetime, he spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, and six years of compulsory military service in exile, in punishment for his membership of an intellectual group critical of the tsarist regime. A compulsive gambler who was at times reduced to begging for money from family and friends, he nevertheless produced masterpieces of psychological and existential fiction including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov and Notes from the Underground, as well as short stories and novellas.

    Nicolas Pasternak Slater was brought up bilingual in Russian by his mother Lydia, a sister of Boris Pasternak. He has translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and an anthology of Lydia Pasternak's writings, as well as translations of work by Pushkin and Tolstoy. He has also translated collections of short stories by Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov for Pushkin Press.

    Maya Slater has translated and edited work by Molière, and edited her husband Nicolas Pasternak Slater's translations of work by Boris Pasternak. She is a Senior Research Fellow of Queen Mary University of London.

    Start a Book Club

    Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

    FAQ

    Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

    Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

    How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

    Do you sell physical books too?

    Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

    How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

    Error Icon
    Save to a list
    0
    /
    30
    0
    /
    100
    Private List
    Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
    Notification Icon
    Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB