Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment (Russian: Преступление и наказание Prestuplenie i nakazanie) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky that focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil.
Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death. Dostoyevsky conceived the idea of Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865, having gambled away much of his fortune, unable to pay his bills or afford proper meals. At the time the author owed large sums of money to creditors, and was trying to help the family of his brother Mikhail, who had died in early 1864. Projected under the title The Drunkards, it was to deal "with the present question of drunkness ... [in] all its ramifications, especially the picture of a family and the bringing up of children in these circumstance, etc., etc." Once Dostoyevsky conceived Raskolnikov and his crime, now inspired by the case of Pierre François Lacenaire, this theme became ancillary, centering on the story of the Marmeladov family.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky offered his Crime and Punishment story or novella to the publisher Mikhail Katkov, whose monthly journal, The Russian Messenger, was a prestigious publication of its kind, and the outlet for both Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. (Summary by Wikipedia)