This superb new translation�never before published�of one of Dostoevsky�s major novels comes from the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Adolescent (originally published in English as A Raw Youth) is markedly different in tone from Dostoevsky�s other masterpieces. It is told from the point of view of the nineteen-year-old narrator, whose immaturity, freshness, and na�vet� are unforgettably reflected in his narrative voice.The illegitimate son of a landowner, Arkady Dolgoruky was raised by foster parents and tutors, and has scarcely ever seen his father, Versilov, and his mother, Versilov�s peasant common-law wife. Arkady goes to Petersburg to meet this �accidental family� and to confront the father who dominates his imagination and whom he both disdains and longs to impress. Having sewn into his coat a document that he believes gives him power over others, Arkady proceeds with an irrepressible youthful volatility that withstands blunders and humiliations at every turn. Dostoevsky masterfully depicts adolescence as a state of uncertainty, ignorance, and incompleteness, but also of richness and exuberance, in which everything is still possible. His tale of a youth finding his way in the disorder of Russian society in the 1870s is a high and serious comedy that borders on both farce and tragedy.