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Rating: 
Summary: the development of genius
Review: I'm almost tempted to give this collection four stars but that's impossible to do when it includes a story like Notes From Underground. The first four tales are the strongest, IMHO, the weakest probably being The Eternal Husband and then A Gentle Creature. I found White Nights enchanting but the former two seemed less developed, pale shadows of Dostoevsky's other writings. His thoughts on love are simply not as poignant or profound. But his grasp of the human impulse towards self-destruction and his ability to put flesh on humiliation and suffering remains unparalleled, The Double and Notes being the best examples. His delight in skewering Russian progressives makes A Disgraceful Affair perhaps the most entertaining of the lot. But through all his voice remains distinctive and inimitable. He was perhaps the greatest novelist of all time, and as this collection shows, he ranks among the greatest of short story writers as well.
Rating:
Summary: Unrelenting Brilliance
Review: One night i decided to "start" the first story in the book, The Double. I was up a little past four in the morning, finishing the story. I was simply enthralled. I continued in this fashion for eight days; until i had finished all eight stories. Dostoevsky seems to have endowed every piece of everything he ever wrote with complete brilliance. Though my favorite story in the collection was Notes From the Underground, all the stories were generally entertaining and almost always enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Collection
Review: This collection can be recommended to anyone interested in sampling Dostoyesvky's shorter fiction; it contains within the one volume a good number of stories which in other editions (Penguin and Oxford) fill more than one volume. The short stories themselves are just sublime and should not be overlooked by those who tend to think that the best work will be necessarily contained in the novels. The Double is my favourite; it is an especially humorous tale, though sombre in its overall vision. Notes from the Underground is seminal, of course, and is probably the most important story included; A Gentle Creature is disturbing.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Collection
Review: This collection can be recommended to anyone interested in sampling Dostoyesvky's shorter fiction; it contains within the one volume a good number of stories which in other editions (Penguin and Oxford) fill more than one volume. The short stories themselves are just sublime and should not be overlooked by those who tend to think that the best work will be necessarily contained in the novels. The Double is my favourite; it is an especially humorous tale, though sombre in its overall vision. Notes from the Underground is seminal, of course, and is probably the most important story included; A Gentle Creature is disturbing.
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