num_pages: 658
description: The Idiot (1868), written under the appalling personal circumstances Dostoevsky endured while travelling in Europe, not only reveals the author's acute artistic sense and penetrating psychological insight, but also affords his most powerful indictment of a Russia struggling to emulate contemporary Europe while sinking under the weight of Western materialism. It is the portrait of nineteenth-century Russian society in which a "positively good man" clashes with the emptiness of a society that cannot accommodate his moral idealism. Meticulously faithful to the original, this new translation includes explanatory notes and a critical introduction by W.J. Leatherbarrow.
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: 173668
places: Russian Empire, St. Petersburg
publisher: Oxford University Press