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The Idiot

A New Translation
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Brief Description
A haunting parable of innocence undone, The Idiot stands as Dostoevsky's most personal—and most disquieting—novel. It follows the gentle and guileless Prince Myshkin, recently returned to St. Petersburg from treatment in a Swiss sanatorium, whose radical honesty and spiritual clarity set him fatally at odds with... Read More
Format: Hardback
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The acclaimed translator of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov returns with a definitive new rendering of Dostoevsky’s most enigmatic and poignant novel

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A haunting parable of innocence undone, The Idiot stands as Dostoevsky's most personal—and most disquieting—novel.

It follows the gentle and guileless Prince Myshkin, recently returned to St. Petersburg from treatment in a Swiss sanatorium, whose radical honesty and spiritual clarity set him fatally at odds with the vanities and cruelties of Russian high society. His presence unravels a web of greed, desire, and wounded pride as he becomes entangled with the beautiful, self-destructive Nastasya Filippovna and the tormented Rogozhin.

Can goodness persist in a world built on deceit? Or does purity, in such a world, become its own kind of delusion?

In this vibrant new translation, Michael R. Katz reveals the raw intensity of Dostoevsky's vision, accentuating the novel's dark ironies and turbulent rhythms and preserving the jagged emotional force of the original. This is the most faithful and compelling version yet of a masterpiece that still unsettles and still astonishes.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781324096375

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 21 July 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Liveright Publishing Corporation

Contributors:

  • Translated by Michael R. Katz

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 235.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 800

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Fiction Fyodor Dostoevsky General Fiction Literary Fiction

About the Author

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and many other novels. Michael R. Katz is the C. V. Starr Professor Emeritus of Russian and East European Studies at Middlebury College. He has translated over twenty Russian novels, including The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, Fathers and Children, and Notes from Underground.

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