The Idiot (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) FROM OUR EDITORS
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FROM THE PUBLISHER
Just two years after completing Crime and Punishment,
which explored the mind of a murderer, Dostoevsky produced another
masterpiece, The Idiot. This time the author portrays a truly
beautiful soul—a character he found difficult to bring to life because, as he
wrote, ﾽbeauty is the ideal, and neither my country, nor civilized Europe,
know what that ideal of beauty is.ﾽ The result was one of Dostoevskyﾽs
greatest characters—Prince Myshkin, a saintly, Christ-like, yet deeply human
figure.
The story begins when Myshkin arrives on Russian soil after a stay in a Swiss
sanatorium. Scorned by St. Petersburg society as an idiot for his generosity
and innocence, the prince finds himself at the center of a struggle between a
rich, kept woman and a beautiful, virtuous girl, who both hope to win his
affection. Unfortunately, Myshkinﾽs very goodness seems to bring disaster to
everyone he meets. The shocking denouement tragically reveals how, in a world
obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium is the only
place for a saint.
Joseph Frank is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at
Princeton University and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and
Slavic Languages and Literature at Stanford University. He is the author of a
five-volume study of Dostoevskyﾽs life and work. The first four volumes
received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, two Christian
Gauss Awards, two James Russell Lowell Awards of the Modern Language
Association, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and other honors. Frank is also
the author of Through the Russian Prism: Essays on Literature and Culture,
The Widening Gyre, and The Idea of Spatial Form. He also wrote the
introduction to the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Dostoevskyﾽs The
House of the Dead and Poor Folk.
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