The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky · Идиот
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1869
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- Russian
- Length
- Long · 650 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Difficult4 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendThe Idiot, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa VolokhonskyVintage Classics, 2003The most accurate modern translation; David McDuff's Penguin edition is another sound choice.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
Prince Myshkin, an epileptic returning to Russia from years in a Swiss clinic, is a man of complete goodness and candour whom Petersburg society takes for a fool. He is drawn between two women, the proud and damaged Nastasya Filippovna, who is being bought and sold among rich men, and the young Aglaya Epanchin. The merchant's son Rogozhin loves Nastasya with a violence that ends in her murder, and Myshkin, keeping vigil with the killer over her body, sinks back into idiocy.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Idiot are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
