The Possessed cover

The Possessed

Rating 4.7
Word count
1.4M words
Chapters
144

Tags

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor DostoyevskyAuthor: Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881,Language: English, Class: PG: Language and Literatures: Slavic (including Russian), Languages and Literature, Release Date: May 1, 2005

Editor's review

The Possessed (also translated as The Devils) is one of Dostoevsky's novels most concentrated on political and spiritual themes. Set in Russian society around 1870 and built around a shocking murder, it portrays how nihilism, atheism, and revolutionary fervor take root in the human heart. Its greatest value lies in its intellectual depth and its gallery of characters: Stavrogin, Kirillov, Shatov, and the Verkhovensky father and son each embody an extreme idea, and their collisions form an intellectual tragedy. In narrative, Dostoevsky's habitual polyphonic method is on full display here, with suspense and speculation interwoven, so that reading offers both the momentum of a detective novel and the weight of a philosophical text. This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg, suitable as an entry into Dostoevsky's later major works and for repeated study by readers interested in nineteenth-century Russian intellectual history, political radicalism, and religious philosophy. Read at a deliberate pace and attend to the clashes of idea behind the characters' dialogue.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who love Dostoevsky and wish to delve into his later novels of ideas
  • History enthusiasts interested in nineteenth-century Russian society and revolutionary thought
  • Literary readers willing to read long intellectual novels and enjoy characters' debates
  • University students studying nihilism, religion, and political philosophy

Not a good fit for

  • Readers who prefer light plots and fast-paced entertainment
  • Beginners impatient with Russian names and long debates
  • Readers seeking a Chinese translation (this is a public-domain English ebook)

Reading tips

  1. First map the main characters and their relationships, remember each one's ideological stance, then enter the plot.
  2. Read the long dialogues as clashes of ideas, noting arguments that strike you as you go.
  3. Slow down in chapters related to the murder, noting how earlier foreshadowing echoes characters' motives.
  4. Read alongside background material on nineteenth-century Russian history to help understand the novel's social context.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104
  105. 105
  106. 106
  107. 107
  108. 108
  109. 109
  110. 110
  111. 111
  112. 112
  113. 113
  114. 114
  115. 115
  116. 116
  117. 117
  118. 118
  119. 119
  120. 120
  121. 121
  122. 122
  123. 123
  124. 124
  125. 125
  126. 126
  127. 127
  128. 128
  129. 129
  130. 130
  131. 131
  132. 132
  133. 133
  134. 134
  135. 135
  136. 136
  137. 137
  138. 138
  139. 139
  140. 140
  141. 141
  142. 142
  143. 143
  144. 144

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?
This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg; the text is in English, not a Chinese translation. It suits readers with some English reading ability who wish to engage directly with the original text; those who find English difficult may consult a reliable Chinese translation alongside.
Can I read The Possessed without having read other Dostoevsky works?
Yes, but be prepared. The book has many characters and high intellectual density and ranks among Dostoevsky's more difficult later works. It is advisable to learn some background on nineteenth-century Russian society first, or start with more concentrated, clearer works such as Crime and Punishment before reading this one.
What is The Possessed mainly about, and is it worth reading?
Centered on a murder, the novel shows how a group of characters driven by extreme ideas stir up turmoil in a Russian provincial town, exploring the dangers of nihilism, atheism, and political fanaticism. Its dissection of human nature and ideas is profound, making it an important work for understanding Dostoevsky's thought and worthwhile for long-form readers willing to invest time.
What should I note when reading the English ebook?
Public-domain ebooks have plain formatting; use reading software with adjustable fonts. Characters' names appear in various transliterations, so note different forms of address for the same person; when encountering long debates, grasp the main point first rather than parsing every word, and keep the overall plot thread coherent.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian novelist. Publicly available information on the details of his life in this database is limited, yet his works have had a profound influence. The collection here includes thirty-two of his works, among them Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Notes from the House of the Dead, and The Grand Inquisitor. He often took criminal cases, moral dilemmas, and questions of faith as his subjects, probing his characters' inner divisions, guilt, and longing for redemption. His narratives are tense and dramatic, and his psychological portraiture is especially fine-grained. These works have secured him an important place in world literature and continue to exert a wide influence on later fiction and intellectual discussion.

More by the same author

Top rated in the same category