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Literary Criticism > Devils

Devils

By Fyodor Dostoevsky, Michael R Katz


Where to buy


Publish Date

June 08, 2008

Category

Fiction / Classics
Fiction / Literary

Price

$19.95
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 is at his most imaginatively humorous in Devils: the novel is full of buffoonery and grotesque comedy. The plot is loosely based on the details of a notorious case of political murder, but Dostoevsky weaves suicide, rape, and a multiplicity of scandals into a compelling story of political evil. 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 it.
FyodorDostoevsky.

ISBN: 9780199540495
Format: Paperback
Pages: 800
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: June 08, 2008