The Idiot

In this literary classic, Fyodor Dostoevsky focuses on a nobleman whose gentle, childlike nature has earned him the nickname "the idiot," and presents a superb, panoramic view of mid-nineteenth-century Russian manners, morals, and philosophy.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821—1881), one of nineteenth- century Russia's greatest novelists, spent four years in a convict prison in Siberia, after which he was obliged to enlist in the army. In later years his penchant for gambling sent him deeply into debt.

David McDuff has translated many works for Penguin Classics, including Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.

William Mills Todd III is a professor of Slavic languages at Harvard.