Crime and Punishment Author:Dostoyevsky When he began write Crime and Punishment, the great novel which extended his reputation outside Russia, Dostoyevsky himself was embarrassed with debts as Raskolnikov, the young student who, in the book, murders a stupid and grasping old woman for gain. In Raskolnikov's growing sense of guilt the author handles a universal theme on which he had b... more »rooded during his imprisonment in Siberia.« less