Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Notes from Underground' was first published in 1864. The novella appeared in the literary journal Epoch, which Dostoevsky edited with his brother Mikhail, and was issued in installments from January through April of that year.
The work is divided into two contrasting parts. 'Underground' presents the bitter, isolated reflections of an unnamed former civil servant, while 'Apropos of the Wet Snow' dramatizes episodes from his earlier life. This structure moves from philosophical argument to humiliating social experience, showing how the narrator's ideas affect his behavior.
Dostoevsky wrote the book partly in reaction to optimistic theories that portrayed human beings as rational and predictable. His underground narrator insists that people may deliberately act against their own interests simply to preserve their freedom. The novella predates 'Crime and Punishment' by two years and is often treated as a major precursor to existentialist literature. The 1866 date sometimes causes confusion because it appears on a later Russian edition, not the first publication.