Notes from Underground was first published in January and February of 1864 as the featured presentation in the first two issues of The Epoch, Dostoevsky's second journal of the 1860's. His first journal, Time, had recently failed, his new journal was threatened with failure, his wife was dying, his financial position was becoming evermore difficult and embarrassing, his conservatism was eroding his popularity with the liberal majority of the reading public, and he was increasingly the subject of attack by the liberal and radical press. On March 20, 1864, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother Mikhail: "I sat down to work on my novel. I want to get it off my back as soon as possible, but I still want to do it as well as possible. It has been harder to write than I thought it would be. Still it is absolutely necessary that it be good: I personally want it to be good. The tone now seems too strange, sharp and wild; perhaps it will not right itself; if not, the poetry will have to soften it and carry it off."
Many aspects of Notes from Underground, - and especially, as Dostoevsky himself noticed, the tone - seem strange, sharp and even bitter. To some extent, the bitterness of the novel is traceable to the many personal misfortunes Dostoevsky suffered while the novel was being written. Much more important, however, was the influence of his maturing world-view with its ever colder and more distant attitude toward the European liberalism, materialism and utopianism of his younger years. Dostoevsky had begun his writing career in the 1840's as a romantic idealist, even as a dreamer. At that time he had devoted a great deal of attention to utopian socialism and its vision of a perfectly satisfying, perfectly regulated life for humankind. This perfection of life was thought to be achievable solely through the application of the principles of reason and enlightened self-interest. In fact, it was maintained that given the dominance of the rational and the spread of enlightenment, perfection of life must necessarily follow.
