Notes From the Underground

Notes from Underground is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is considered by many to be the world's first existentialist novel.

It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg.

Notes from Underground (1864) is written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man".

Endorsements

"Best overture for existentialism ever written." — Walter Kaufmann