Paperback, 800 pages

English language

Published 2008 by Oxford University Press.

ISBN:
978-0-19-954049-5
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OCLC Number:
916133952

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(21 reviews)

Devils, also known in English as The Possessed and The Demons, was first published in 1871-2. The third of Dostoevsky's five major novels, it is at once a powerful political tract and a profound study of atheism, depicting the disarray which follows the appearance of a band of modish radicals in a small provincial town. Dostoevsky compares infectious radicalism to the devils that drove the Gadarene swine over the precipice in his vision of a society possessed by demonic creatures that produce devastating delusions of rationality. Dostoevsky weaves suicide, rape, and a multiplicity of scandals into a compelling story of political evil, yet he is at his most humorous in Devils: the novel is full of buffoonery and a grotesque comedy.

This new translation also includes the chapter `Stavrogin's Confession', which was initially considered to be too shocking to print. In this edition it appears where the author originally intended …

66 editions

reviewed Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Dover Thrift Editions)

Review of 'Demons' on 'Goodreads'

5/5

I've read and reread this book countless times, anytime I start this and take over 2 days of a break from it I feel compelled to start from the top again.

Very few books do you come across where the writer takes events from life (or whatever fictional setting they've conjured up) and put them onto paper without doing nothing more than narrating these events in their own style and calling it a day. The most brilliant thing about this book is how naturally Dostoevsky swaps from different communication styles from character to character. Arguably this is something he does throughout all his works but it is much more pronounced in demons and especiallythis translation (Pevear & Volokhonsky's).

The book has always been on of my favourites—if
not, my favourite—out of Dostoevsky's corpus. It's not that this story is the most enticing or most unique of his works, …

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Subjects

  • Nihilism -- Fiction
  • Terrorists -- Russia -- Fiction
  • Russia -- Social life and customs -- 1533-1917 -- Fiction

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