The article considers the earliest story of F. Dostoevsky “Poor people” (1846) and establishes its connection with the subsequent works of the writer, in particular with the novel “Crime and punishment” (1866). As shown in the work, the image of “little man”, which attracted Dostoevsky in the 1840s, continued to occupy the attention of the writer several decades later, including the creation of the novel “Drunken”, proposed in St. Petersburg publishing houses, but did not receive a response from publishers and included in the later appeared novel about Raskolnikov. The article outlines the lines of textual interactions between “Poor people” and “Crime and punishment” and shows that the image of the so-called “little hero” MakarDevushkin absorbed the features of both the traditional tipes - “little man” and “rebel hero”, from which the image of the “reasonable egoist” RodionRaskolnikov subsequently developed. The article presents textual - topical, figurative motif, a speech style, a poetic, character - autopa