The novel charts the story of nineteen-year-old Arkady - the illigitimate son of the landowner Versilov and the maid Sofia Andreyevna - as he struggles to find his place in society and 'become a Rothschild' against the background of 1870s Russia, a nation still tethered to its old systems and values but shaken up by the new ideological currents of socialism and nihilism. Both a Bildungsroman and a novel of ideas, dealing with themes such as the relationship between fathers and sons and the role of money in modern society, The Adolescent - here presented in a brand-new translation by Dora O'Brien - shows Dostoevsky at his finest as a social commentator and observer of the workings of a young man's mind.