This author must be amongst the select most essential group, and here I lay out the material
In the Delphi Classics edition, best bang for your buck
1. Poor Folk -- finished it the other day, penpals, male and female, lady gets married to someone else and the guy penpal pleads that she keep writing to him. It's an epistolary novel, all in letters, it's good, I recorded a portion of it a few days ago, and it was a highlight for me. 2. The Double -- currently reading, his most Gogol-esque the Intro said. I think that means in some sense akin to Kafka's style. 3. Netochka Nezvanova 4. Uncle's Dream 5. The Friend of the Family 6. The Insulted and the Humiliated 7. The House of the Dead 8. Notes from Underground 9. Crime and Punishment 10. The Gambler 11. The Idiot 12. The Permanent Husband 13. The Possessed (Demons in the new translation) 14. The Raw Youth (The Adolescent in the new) 15. The Brothers Karamazov
And then all the short stories. #'s 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14 and 15 may be read in the widely acclaimed translations of those people whose names are hard for me to spell.
AND
Joseph Frank's magisterial biography of this giant of world literature.
This biography focuses more on the works than biographies usually do. Therefore there might not be much tawdry details about his gambling addiction.
