Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Possessed (The Devils)

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

IN UNDERTAKING to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till latelywrapped in uneventful obscurity, I find myself forced in absence of literary skill to beginmy story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical details concerning thattalented and highly-esteemed gentleman, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky. I trust thatthese details may at least serve as an introduction, while my projected story itself will comelater.I will say at once that Stepan Trofimovitch had always filled a particular rôle among us, thatof the progressive patriot, so to say, and he was passionately fond of playing the part-somuch so that I really believe he could not have existed without it. Not that I would put himon a level with an actor at a theatre, God forbid, for I really have a respect for him. Thismay all have been the effect of habit, or rather, more exactly of a generous propensity hehad from his earliest years for indulging in an agreeable day-dream in which he figured as apicturesque public character. He fondly loved, for instance, his position as a "persecuted"man and, so to speak, an "exile." There is a sort of traditional glamour about those two littlewords that fascinated him once for all and, exalting him gradually in his own opinion, raisedhim in the course of years to a lofty pedestal very gratifying to vanity. In an English satire ofthe last century, Gulliver, returning from the land of the Lilliputians where the people wereonly three or four inches high, had grown so accustomed to consider himself a giant amongthem, that as he walked along the streets of London he could not help crying out tocarriages and passers-by to be careful and get out of his way for fear he should crush them, imagining that they were little and he was still a giant. He was laughed at and abused for it, and rough coachmen even lashed at the giant with their whips. But was that just? Whatmay not be done by habit? Habit had brought Stepan Trofimovitch almost to the sameposition, but in a more innocent and inoffensive form, if one may use such expressions, forhe was a most excellent man.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon & Brown
• Seitenzahl: 726
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Oktober 2018
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 47mm
• Gewicht: 1311g
• ISBN-13: 9781731701374
• ISBN-10: 1731701373
• Artikelnr.: 54615643

Autorenporträt

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky[a] (11 November 1821 - 9 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Dostoevsky's body of works consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories, and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature.[3] His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Born in Moscow in 1821, Dostoevsky was introduced to literature at an early age through fairy tales and legends, and through books by Russian and foreign authors. His mother died in 1837 when he was 15, and around the same time, he left school to enter the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute. After graduating, he worked as an engineer and briefly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, translating books to earn extra money. In the mid-1840s he wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, which gained him entry into St. Petersburg's literary circles. Arrested in 1849 for belonging to a literary group that discussed banned books critical of Tsarist Russia, he was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted at the last moment. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile. In the following years, Dostoevsky worked as a journalist, publishing and editing several magazines of his own and later A Writer's Diary, a collection of his writings. He began to travel around western Europe and developed a gambling addiction, which led to financial hardship. For a time, he had to beg for money, but he eventually became one of the most widely read and highly regarded Russian writers.