Russian literature famously probes the depths of the human soul. Readers of English translations are probably unaware of the symbolic names that Russian writers routinely give their characters, names that are especially evocative in Russian. For example, the Karamazovs, the protagonists of the book, are named after the combination of words that means 'dark people', pointing to the low moral qualities of the family. This edition includes 125 unique endnotes with explanation of all major terms,