The small town of Mordasov is all abuzz at the arrival of Prince K—, a wealthy, ageing landowner, after an absence of several years. Marya Alexandrovna Moskaleva, a local gossip and fearsome schemer, decides that he would be an advantageous match for her daughter Zina. But in her endeavours to make such a union come about, she must contend with rival matchmakers and Zina’s existing suitors.

The first book Dostoevsky wrote after serving his sentence in a Siberian prison camp – an experience that inspired his semi-autobiographical novel The House of the Dead – Uncle’s Dream shares none of that work’s gloomy tone or weighty subject matter: it is a humorous drawing-room novella, a satire of Russian society that can be enjoyed as a lighter counterpoint to the author’s later works.