Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot is an immaculate portrait of innocence tainted by the brutal
reality of human greed. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian by David
McDuff with an introduction by William Mills Todd III. Returning to St Petersburg from a Swiss
sanatorium the gentle and naïve epileptic Prince Myshkin - the titular 'idiot' - pays a visit
to his distant relative General Yepanchin and proceeds to charm the General his wife and his
three daughters. But his life is thrown into turmoil when he chances on a photograph of the
beautiful Nastasya Filippovna. Utterly infatuated with her he soon finds himself caught up in
a love triangle and drawn into a web of blackmail betrayal and finally murder. Inspired by
an image of Christ's suffering Dostoyevsky sought to portray in Prince Myshkin the purity of a
'truly beautiful soul' and explore the perils that innocence and goodness face in a corrupt
world. David McDuff's translation brilliantly captures the novel's idiosyncratic and dream-like
language and the nervous elliptic flow of the narrative. This edition also contains an
introduction by William Mills Todd III which is a fascinating examination of the pressures on
Dostoyevsky as he wrote the story of his Christ-like hero. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
(1821-1881) was born in Moscow. From 1849-54 he lived in a convict prison and in later years
his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt. His other works available in Penguin
Classics include Crime & Punishment The Brothers Karamazov and Demons. If you enjoyed The
Idiot you might like Anton Chekhov's Ward No. 6 and Other Stories also available in Penguin
Classics. 'McDuff's language is rich and alive'The New York Times Book Review'[The Idiot's] ...
narrative is so compelling'Rowan Williams
