"Notes from Underground" (1864) is a study of a single character, `the real man of the Russian majority`, and a revelation of Dostoyevsky`s own deepest beliefs. One of his best critics has said of the first part that it forms his `most utterly naked pages. Never after wards was he so fully and openly to reveal the inmost recesses, unmeant for display, of his heart`. "The Double" (1846) is the nightmarish story of Mr Golyadkin, a man who is haunted or possessed by his own double. Is `Mr Golyadkin junior` really a double or simply a fearful side of his own nature? This uncertainty is what gives urgency and horror to a tale which may be read as a classic study of human breakdown.