This is one of those rare texts that really is seminal, as Michael Katz demonstrates in the collection of "Responses" he assembles for this edition, ranging from Woody Allen's parodic Notes from the Overfed through Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to Sartre's Erostratus. There are also extracts from Dostoevsky's letters and essays, and judiciously chosen critical pieces by, among others, Lev Shestov, M.M. Bakhtin and Tzvetan Todorov. As always with Norton Critical Editions, this is an immaculate production, and extraordinary value at the price. If you have not before encountered Dostoevsky's existential Underground Man, with his diseased liver and his rancid contempt for himself and the world - "I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man" - here is an ideal meeting place. But go cautiously: he bites, and to the bone.