Written in the form of a diary, The House of the Dead recounts the story of Alexander Goryanchikov, a gentleman who is condemned to ten years' hard labour for killing his wife in a fit of rage.

Initially the target of the other inmates' malice, he gradually settles in and becomes an avid observer of the new world around him – watching his fellow prisoners being brutally and cruelly punished by the guards, listening to their past stories of blood and murder and learning that even convicts are capable of acts of pure generosity, as when they sacrifice their own meal to feed a stray dog that wanders around the camp.

Based on Dostoevsky's own autobiographical experiences during a four-year internment in a prison colony in Siberia, this genre-defying novel is not only an unflinching exposé of the conditions of Russian prisoners during the Tsarist period, but also a call to see the human side in criminals and rediscover the values of forgiveness and brotherly love.