What was the name of Dostoevsky’s 1846 novel about the clerk Golyadkin?

Dostoevsky’s 1846 novel about the clerk Golyadkin is The Double.

The protagonist, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin, is a minor civil servant in Saint Petersburg whose social insecurity deepens when a second Golyadkin appears. The double resembles him physically but seems more socially successful, gradually taking over his place among colleagues.

The novel explores divided identity, humiliation, bureaucracy, and psychological instability. Its strange, claustrophobic style differs sharply from the realism of Poor Folk, Dostoevsky’s first published novel.

The book was initially met with disappointment by critics and readers who had expected another work like Poor Folk. Dostoevsky later revised it, and modern readers often view The Double as an important early experiment in psychological fiction.