The Double is the Dostoevsky novel featuring the clerk Yakov Golyadkin and his disturbing double.
Published in 1846, the novella follows Golyadkin, a socially anxious government clerk whose apparent double gradually takes over his professional and social life. The newcomer resembles him physically but behaves with greater confidence and manipulation.
The work explores alienation, identity, bureaucracy, and psychological breakdown. Its themes anticipate elements of Dostoevsky’s later fiction, although its reception was much less enthusiastic than that of Poor Folk.
The Double is often confused with Notes from Underground because both feature psychologically intense first-person perspectives and troubled protagonists. They are separate works: The Double centers on Golyadkin’s double, while Notes from Underground is narrated by an unnamed underground man.