num_pages: 704
description: This is one of 1000 limited-edition copies of "The Idiot" published to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, with a special jacket created by one of the most influential designers of our time, Ron Arad. Inspired by an image of Christ's suffering, Dostoyevsky set out to create a protagonist with "a truly beautiful soul" and to trace the fate of such an individual as he comes into contact with the brutal reality of contemporary society. The novel begins when the innocent epileptic Prince Myshkin - the 'idiot' - arrives in St Petersburg and finds himself drawn into a web of violent and passionate relationships that leads to blackmail, betrayal and eventually murder.(This doesn't actually have a cover. The binding stitchery is shown, and the book has a hard clear plastic slipcase to store it in)Arad's book has no cover so the reader will pick it up and read the author's first words. It is stripped back to show the glue and thread in the spine which is visible through an acrylic slipcase with a fresnel lens so the text appears to move as the lid is removed" (Publisher's blurb). "By not wanting to have a cover, it ended with the book becoming an amazing object that is alive, but which maintains its transparency. It becomes a glorious box with a book inside, almost like a monument" (Ron Arad).
language: English
title: The Idiot
titlecomplete: The Idiot
characters: Nastasya Filippovna, Prince Myshkin, Rogozhin
genres: Fiction, Philosophy, Classic Literature, Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, Russian Literature, Historical Fiction, Russia
ratings_count: 173671
places: Russian Empire, St. Petersburg
publisher: Penguin