Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Novellas

Driven to his deathbed by an incurable disease, the 30-year-old impoverished gentleman Chulkaturin decides to write a diary looking back on his short life.

After describing his youthful disillusionment and his family's fall from grace and loss of status, the narrative focuses on his love for Lisa, the daughter of a senior civil servant, his rivalry with the dashing Prince N - and his ensuing humiliation.

These pages helped establish the archetype of the 'superfluous man', a recurring figure in 19th-century Russian literature.