The Adolescent

The Adolescent, also known as A Raw Youth, is a novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky and first published in 1875.

The novel follows Arkady Dolgoruky, a nineteen-year-old young man searching for independence and identity. The illegitimate son of the wealthy landowner Versilov, Arkady has grown up largely separated from his parents and arrives in St. Petersburg determined to understand his complicated family and find his place in society.

Arkady is obsessed with an ambitious personal “idea”: to become as wealthy and powerful as Rothschild so that he will never have to depend on anyone. However, his plans are disrupted as he becomes involved in family conflicts, romantic rivalries, financial schemes, and dangerous secrets surrounding his father and the people in their social circle.

Through Arkady's experiences, Dostoevsky explores the uncertainties of youth, the desire for freedom, and the struggle between idealism and reality. The novel is both a coming-of-age story and a psychological examination of a young man attempting to form his own moral beliefs in a confusing and often corrupt world.

"I cannot resist sitting down to write the history of the first steps in my career, though I might very well abstain from doing so. I know one thing for certain: I shall never again sit down to write my autobiography even if I live to be a hundred. One must be too disgustingly in love with self to be able without shame to write about oneself."

This edition uses the English translation by Constance Garnett, first published in 1916 by William Heinemann.