The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1869 · Russia · Novel · ~650 pages

Prince Myshkin, a guileless, epileptic innocent the world calls an “idiot”, returns to a St. Petersburg of schemers, beauties, and fortune-hunters. Dostoevsky’s attempt to portray a truly good man in a corrupt world.

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Why read it

Dostoevsky asks the hardest question, what happens to a genuinely good person in a cynical world?, and refuses an easy answer. Strange, moving, and unlike his other masterpieces.

Themes

Faith & doubt Identity & self Love & illusion

SettingSt. Petersburg, 1860s

A glittering, grasping St. Petersburg of new fortunes and old titles, where money talked louder than virtue and a guileless man read as either a saint or a fool.

About the author

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) wrote The Idiot abroad, in poverty and grief, trying to depict “a positively beautiful soul.”