Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground (pre-reform Russian: Записки изъ подполья; post-reform Russian: Записки из подполья, Zapíski iz podpólʹya; also translated as Notes from the Underground or Letters from the Underworld) is a novel written in 1864 by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and is considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels.

The novel 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. The first part of the story is told in monologue form through the Underground Man's diary, and attacks contemporary Russian philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?. The second part of the book, called "Apropos of the Wet Snow", describes certain events that appear to be destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator and anti-hero.